


Things Have Changed for Me (and That's Okay)

by PyromanicSchizophrenic



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Brendon needs a hug, Internalized Homophobia, Religious Themes, author has no real knowledge of the LDS faith but is open to education, but not in a bad way, dudes in skirts, gabe saporta needs a warning label, it makes sense I promise, josh dun in shorts, like hella short shorts, yes it's ryden get over it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-09-07 22:03:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 51,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8817853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PyromanicSchizophrenic/pseuds/PyromanicSchizophrenic
Summary: Brendon comes out to his parents, and it doesn't go over well. The pretty boy who lives next door comes to the rescue--meaning he convinces Brendon's parents to send him to church camp to "pray the gay away." Brendon might just kill him.And then this stupid church camp has many points and goals for the weekend, but none of them appear to have anything to do with praying the gay away, leaving Brendon confused and waiting for the other shoe to drop.Brendon has a lot to learn about himself, and, thanks to the pretty boy who lives next door, he just might learn even more in less than 48 hours.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *cracks knuckles* I AM NOT A HOMOPHOBE! I AM NOT PUSHING MY BELIEFS ONTO YOU!
> 
> Okay, got that out of the way. This is a very long, very humorous story that I have spent a long time working on. But it's also a story that is based off of an event that means a lot to me. A Christian event. This story holds a lot of my own religious beliefs and views, but also holds a lot of goofy antics and shenanigans.
> 
> I also want to say that Happening is a real thing, and if you have any plans to attend a Happening in your lifetime, DO NOT READ THIS STORY. Happening is an experience that, if given the chance, you should go into it blind. Please don't read this and then go to a Happening and lose some of that experience.
> 
> And finally, I want to say that I am well aware that most, if not all, of these real people are not Episcopalian. In fact, Gabe isn't even Christian. I know. If I kept everyone at their regular religions, this story would have nobody. And then we wouldn't have Josh Dun in terrifying shorts. So there.

Brendon stares uselessly down at the packing list in his hand. He wonders if it would be worth the trouble to kill Pretty Boy Next Door.

(Pros of killing Pretty Boy Next Door: he wouldn’t have to go to this stupid church camp.

Cons of killing Pretty Boy Next Door: he’s pretty sure murder is higher up on God’s no-go list than his current offense; he’d go to jail, which may or may not be worse than this stupid church camp; Pretty Boy Next Door is like, really fucking pretty.)

Cons outweigh pros by a landslide. Damn. Looks like Brendon’s stuck going to stupid church camp.

Brendon can hardly remember all the forms he’d signed to get into this stupid church camp, anyway. There was a rule thing. Like a contract. (“The Community Covenant,” Pretty Boy Next Door had said. “Basic rules for stuff like this. No cell phones, stay on grounds.”) Brendon had signed it without reading, smiling pretty for show and cursing up a storm in his head. Now he’s staring at the packing list Pretty Boy Next Door had supplied him, trying to figure out why the fuck it’s so minimal. Literally all that’s required is clothes and soap and bedding(???). He hasn’t been camping much, but the kid that lived next door (before Pretty Boy moved in) went camping all the time with his Boy Scout troop, and he always had a tent and a sleeping bag and shit. Where’s Brendon going to sleep? Is this going to be at an _actual_  church? Brendon can hardly handle staying in a church long enough for worship, no way in all of Heaven, Hell, Earth, or Purgatory is he staying in one a whole fucking weekend. Nope.

He casts around trying to remember what it was Pretty Boy Next Door had said. Blah, blah, whole weekend dedicated to worship, something about discovering himself? It’s not specifically LDS, Brendon remembers. He had been, frankly, surprised that hadn’t fucked the deal over with his parents. Apparently, whole weekend dedicated to strengthening his relationship > specifically Mormon camp.

Still, LDS or not, it was a fucking _church camp_. And it was going to suck.

* * *

Brendon blinks. The grounds don’t look too particularly hellish, he’ll admit. He climbs out of the car, hoping his parents don’t think they have to get out too. As he moves around to the back and starts pulling his suitcase out, he gets accosted by somebody with a bright grin and long hair. Brendon looks up at him; he’s pretty tall. “Hi, I’m William,” he introduces, holding out a hand. Brendon shakes it cautiously. He wonders how many people are going to stop smiling at him and start condemning him the second they find out why his parents forced him to come to this stupid thing. “Need any help?”

Brendon blinks again, looking down at his one suitcase. He doesn’t really see a reason why he’d need someone to help him with it, but then he sees a girl with bright orange hair carrying three suitcases, chattering brightly to someone else, carrying nothing. It’s pretty obvious that the girl carrying nothing is just as uncomfortable as Brendon is. Clearly, he’s supposed to let William help. “Uh, yeah, thanks.”

William smiles at him reassuringly. “You’ll find your footing here pretty soon,” he says. “Don’t worry.” He takes Brendon’s bag and waves at his parents, still in the car.

His mom rolls down the window. “Be good, okay Sweetie?”

Brendon feels his cheeks flush. “Yeah, Mom. See you Sunday.” He glances sideways at William to see if he’s laughing, but William’s not even paying attention.

“Hey, Pete!” he calls out. Brendon looks over to see who William just called out to, and blinks at the sight of a boy in really tight jeans, a purple hoodie with dozens of white name tags attached, and a skirt made of crepe paper. He’s holding a wand—the kind you’d give a three-year-old girl that wanted to be a fairy princess for Halloween. He kind of wishes his parents had seen the guy before they left; they’d have dragged him back into the car and sped away without waiting for an explanation. Before he can ask William what's going on, the kid’s standing right in front of them.

“Greetings,” he says, grinning with a grin that took up half his face. “I am Pete, the Name Tag Fairy. What is your name, Candidate?”

“Wha—uh, Brendon,” he says intelligently. “Brendon Urie.”

Pete nods, spreading his arms wide. William moves around to Pete’s back, and Brendon figures that he should try and find his name tag on Pete’s front.

“Got it,” William says after a moment, skillfully detaching it while still holding Brendon’s bag. “Let’s go get you signed in, Brendon,” he adds, handing the name tag to the increasingly confused—

“What did you call me?” he asks Pete, only just realizing that Pete had given him some kind of title.

“Candidate,” Pete answers readily. “First time Happeners. That’s you.”

Brendon shakes his head, deciding to let it go. He has no idea what the hell is going on, a fact that grows more and more true with each second he’s here. So he lets the matter drop and follows William across the field, to where there are some kids sitting on a picnic table.

Brendon reads their name tags, very thankful that they’re there. Pretty Boy Next Door is there, holding a small notebook. His name tag reads _Ryan_ , but Brendon is still mad at him for convincing his parents to force him to come, so he refuses to call him by his name.

(Not that Pretty Boy Next Door is particularly insulting. It’s the principle of the thing.)

Next to him sits a kid with long black hair, and Brendon _really_  wishes his parents had caught sight of him before they left. The hair’s probably offense enough, but the Black Sabbath shirt he’s wearing would have been a serious deal breaker. Especially paired with Pete the Skirt-Wearing Name Tag Fairy. _Frank_. His parents probably forced him to come, too. No way did someone like that willingly come to a camp like this. He’s holding a bucket in his lap and waving a stack of envelopes around wildly as he says something about someone called Mikey.

“Yeah, Gee’s totally excited that—Oh, hey!”

Brendon wonders how brainwashed these people have to be to be this smiley.

Pretty Boy Next Door smiles up at him too.

“Brendon, hey. Glad you’re here. Frank, this is Brendon, I was telling you about him last night.”

Frank’s excited grin changes into a knowing one. “Sweet. Glad you could make it.” He hands Brendon an envelope. “Phone, iPod, watch, anything else that can tell the time. You’ll get it back Sunday before closing.”

Brendon’s hand immediately flies to his pocket, where his phone and iPod are both resting safely. “My… _what_? _No_!”

“Why is everyone so difficult about this part?” a girl with a clipboard sighs wistfully. She’s got long black hair pulled into a ponytail, and her name tag reads _Victoria_. “You signed the Community Covenant. You agreed to no electronics.”

A boy who’s name tag reads _Tyler_  holds up the poster board he’s holding. It says _Community Covenant_  up at the top, and Brendon recognizes it vaguely as a giant handwritten version of the form he signed without reading.

“But, I…My _music_ ,” he protests weakly.

“You’re not gonna have enough free time to enjoy it, man,” Frank tells him simply. “Trust me, I tried my first time here too. It’s not worth it.”

Brendon looks at all of them, and at William, but they’re all looking at him expectantly. Now Brendon really wishes his parents had whisked him away, deciding it wasn’t at all what he needed after all, and Pretty Boy Next Door was actually a demon trying to lure Brendon even further from the light. But he sighs, realizing that they won’t relent, and pulls his babies out of his pocket and puts them into the envelope that Frank had given him. Pretty Boy hands him a pen, which Brendon uses to write his name on the outside of the envelope. He seals it and lays it gently inside of the bucket, already feeling the loss on a personal level.

“Brendon…Urie?” Victoria asks, uncapping a highlighter. Brendon nods. “Cabin Three.”

“I swear that’s the summer camp’s party cabin,” Pretty Boy snorts.

“Oh, it is,” Tyler agrees. “I was in that cabin last year. The counsellor broke the light and the music coordinator came in during his night off and knocked the clock off the wall.”

“Hayley says nothing interesting ever happens in the girl cabins during summer camp,” Victoria says with a pout. “Cabin Six certainly confirms this claim.”  
Brendon doesn’t know anything about a summer camp being held here. All he knows is that he doesn’t want to go.

“See, I’ve never been in Three,” Pretty Boy complains. “I’m always in Four. Or One. I’m in One a lot.” He hands Brendon the notebook he’s holding. “Sign your name. Document your first time here.”

Frank waggles his eyebrows. “It’ll help with your alibi when you’re accused of robbing the convenience store across the street.”

“I…My _what_? Why would I—”

“Oh, God, you’re adorable,” Frank interrupts with a grin. “It’s just a notebook, man. It’s for people like Mark, who’ve been coming to this for so long they don't remember what team spots they’ve had when, or which Happening was Candidate Happening.”

Brendon doesn’t see a point in signing the damned notebook. He has no intention of coming back, nor does he intend to remember that his first Happening was…whatever number this Happening is. But he signs it anyway, because he doubts they’ll back down any more than they did about the phone. He moves over to Tyler, who’s holding out a Sharpie.

“Just need you to sign the Community Covenant again,” he explains.

“Especially since you clearly didn’t read it the first time,” Victoria adds. Brendon scowls. He’s hating this place more and more by the minute. He’s liable to punch Pretty Boy Next Door in the face by Sunday.

Once he’s done, William leads him past the table and across a pavilion with a concrete floor. “This is the Centrum,” he explains. “We won’t be meeting here too often, but it’s important to know anyway.” They leave the pavilion and step onto a normal looking road. Everything looks pretty normal, Brendon decides. There’s a covered pool right beside the Centrum, and it looks like the first cabin is on the other side of the pool.

“So, um…” Brendon doesn’t know where to begin, he’s got a lot of questions.

“You don’t want to be here,” William fills in for him. “A lot of Candidates don’t. You’ll bond with them.” Brendon doesn’t believe him. It must show on his face, because William just sighs. “Okay, so, basically. Whatever you’re expecting from a church camp, forget it. That’s not what you’re going to find here. Ryan says your parents are Mormon, right?” Brendon nods, unsure of where this is going. “This is—technically—an Episcopalian retreat. This camp is going to completely challenge the belief system you’ve been raised on. All of the people at the table that signed you in? They all agreed to come _back_  to Happening.”

Brendon believes that even less. He doesn’t believe that Frank came willingly in the first place; much less that Frank came willingly again.

Pretty Boy though. He’ll believe Pretty Boy’s been that brainwashed.

“I can’t explain it to you,” William adds after a moment. “Gabe will explain why later tonight, in his talk. But Brendon, while I can’t promise that you’ll have fun and enjoy yourself, I can promise that this is not going to be the three days of hell you’re clearly expecting it to be. So just…Just don’t expect anything, is what I’m trying to say. And don’t be too mad at Ryan for convincing your parents to bring you here. The alternative is something—”

“He _told_  you?” Brendon cuts in, voice low and more dangerous than even he’d known it could go.

“He told us your parents wanted you to find God,” William backpedals quickly. “No details or anything. Just that he was glad you were coming here and not something less…open.”

Brendon still isn’t happy that Ryan told a bunch of strangers anything, but he supposes that he’d rather something vague like that than the full story.

Brendon doesn’t notice that they’ve made it to the cabin at first, not until William pulls open the door and steps back so he can enter. There’s a small hallway, one door on the right and two on the left. One of the left doors is shut, the other leads into a bathroom. The door on the right is also wide open, leading into a room filled with twin-sized, uncomfortable-looking beds. Brendon doesn’t know which bed he wants (well, he does, but it appears to be taken; it looks so much more comfortable than the others, too), so he just picks one at random. He notices that there are three bunk-beds, one on either side and one tucked into a corner. The one in the corner looks newer than the other two. Brendon’s glad he’s not stuck with one of them.

“Need help making your bed?” William offers. “Or do you think you’re good?”

Brendon looks up at him. “Is there a reason you’re offering to do everything for me?” he asks blandly. It’s kind of weird.

William just shrugs. “Team’s meant to serve Candidates. Simple as that. We help you with your bags, we offer to help make beds, we clean up at dinner.”

Brendon points to the sheet of paper covering what he assumes is the clock. “And the ‘It’s God’s Time’ thing?”

William laughs. “It’s God’s time,” he repeats, as if that’s the answer. “Okay, so the only person with a watch is Gerard. Don’t ask him what time it is, he won’t tell you. The idea is that you don’t know how long each thing is going to take, so you aren’t staring at a clock waiting for the hour to be up. You aren’t sure if lunch is at noon or one so you aren’t watching the clock waiting for lunchtime. You just know that we have this thing right now, and when it’s time for the next thing, Gerard will ring his bell, and Gabe will tell you the next thing, and we’ll go and do it. We’re on God’s time, and we’re just letting this weekend happen.”

That is, without a doubt, the single worst pun that Brendon has ever heard in his life, but he acknowledges that it was probably an intentionally bad pun, so he kindly doesn’t tell William that. He’s becoming a better Christian already. Can he go home yet?

“Any other questions?” William prompts, sitting down on an empty bed.

Brendon has many questions, but they’re all in the general vicinity of _“what’s the best escape route?”_  and he doubts that’s quite what William meant. So instead he shakes his head and pulls his sheets out of his suitcase, making his bed in silence. William doesn’t seem to be bothered, and he doesn’t try to start any other conversations. At least, not until Brendon’s spreading the blanket out over the bed.

“Ryan really is glad you’re here,” William says quietly. “He’s been talking about it since he got here. Actually, he was talking about wanting to bring you at the Team meeting last month. This means a lot to him. Please, give this weekend a chance. For him.”

Brendon thinks about what William said earlier, about this camp being more open than some of his other alternatives. He thinks about Pete, dressed as a fairy, complete with the three-year-old’s toy wand; about Frank, wearing a Black Sabbath t-shirt; and about the girl he saw earlier, with the obviously dyed hair. There definitely does seem to be more freedom of expression here than he’s seen at his own church. He just doesn’t know if he can trust appearances, not when he’s had God’s teachings pounded into his head for as long as he could remember. And God’s been pretty clear about people like Brendon.

But he can at least stop calling it a stupid church camp. He can stop thinking of it as a unique brand of Hell.

He can give it a chance.

(Not for Pretty Boy Next Door or anything, though. Because _William_  asked. He’s doing it for William.

Obviously.)

* * *

Brendon learns quite a few important things between making his bed and whatever the next thing is (he hopes dinner comes next; he’s hungry).

First thing: Pete is absolutely insane. Brendon learns this while he’s sitting on a picnic table, watching the people playing four square, and Pete comes to sit beside him, still wearing the crepe paper skirt and carrying the fairy princess wand, even though he’s only wearing his own name tag now. Brendon wonders if he’s going to try to wear it for the rest of the day.

“So how’d you get stuck as the fairy?” Brendon asks, trying to start a conversation. Also, he’s really curious why Pete ended up the fairy in the crepe paper skirt while there were more than enough girls to do it.

“I asked first,” Pete says simply. He grins at the confused look on Brendon’s face. “It’s like this, B. I don’t like basketball, I’m horrible at Frisbee, and my four square skills are so astounding that I wanted to save the show for the arrival of all the Candidates. I’m not going to carry Candidates’ bags to their cabins, I’m too lazy. Name Tag Fairy was the perfect option.”

Someone waiting in line snorts. He steps out of line and sits down on Brendon’s other side. His name tag reads _Patrick_ , and he’s wearing a hat. “At least you’re honest,” he mutters, reaching behind Brendon to shove Pete lightly.

Pete reaches _in front_  of Brendon to tap Patrick’s nose with his wand. “Lying is a sin, Pattycakes,” he points out. “This is God’s weekend, remember? We shouldn’t lie.”

Patrick rolls his eyes, but doesn’t say anything in response. Brendon has to acknowledge that Pete’s right, lying _is_  a sin, but he doesn’t see why that’s relevant.

“So, you’re Ryan’s neighbor, right?” Patrick asks after a moment. Brendon’s reminded suddenly of what William said in the cabin earlier, about how Pretty Boy’s been talking about him since he arrived. It’s intimidating, suddenly, that probably every Team member here knows him, knows him as _Ryan’s neighbor._  What’s Pretty Boy even been _telling_  them?

Because…he _knows._  The whole fucking neighborhood heard the fallout from that conversation; heard the way his parents screamed at him, called him a sinner, told him to repent or leave. Pretty Boy knows what Brendon did wrong, exactly why he’s here. William said that they all only know that his parents want him to reconnect with God, rediscover his faith.  
Repent.

“Yeah,” Brendon confirms, because it seems rude not to answer.

Pete starts to grow fidgety, as if totally bored by the conversation. Patrick pretends not to notice, until Pete stands up grandly and says, “I’m gonna steal Gerard’s hat.”

“Don’t steal Gerard’s hat,” Patrick objects, with the tone of someone who’s only doing so to say he tried.

“Gonna steal it for you, ‘Trick!” Pete calls, already walking across the Centrum. Patrick just sighs.

The second thing Brendon learns: there are people with pouches around their waists. These people appear to be the best people. They have candy in those pouches. Brendon’s had three fun-sized Snickers, two fun-sized Twix bars, and like, six mints. Brendon doesn’t understand the significance of these pouches, doesn’t understand why everyone doesn’t have them, but he figures the weekend can’t be that bad as long as they’re floating around giving out free candy for no reason other than that there is candy in their pouches to give away.

The third thing: this Gabe guy that people keep mentioning is even more crazy than Pete, and as tall as William. He learns this when Gabe comes up to him and says, “So you're Rossy’s friend, huh?”

Brendon’s starting to get annoyed. Everyone keeps calling him Ryan’s neighbor, Ryan’s friend. Brendon didn’t even know his name was Ryan until he got here, and saw it on his name tag. They were never formally introduced. All Brendon knows is his parents screamed at him, the pretty boy that lives in the house next door came over, talked to his parents, and his parents shoved a bunch of paperwork in his face, telling him to either sign the forms or leave.

He almost left anyway.

The point is, he’s not Ryan’s friend. “I don’t actually know him that well,” Brendon admits. He doesn’t know Gabe, but the way people keep talking about him, he’s pretty sure Gabe’s kind of in charge, so telling him that he hates Ryan and Ryan can just fuck right off is probably not a good idea.

Gabe laughs suddenly. “Seriously? Now I owe Vicky-T ten bucks. That’s not fair.” Brendon’s about to ask Gabe what he’s talking about when suddenly he calls out, “Rossy, I had _faith_  in you!” and then Pretty Boy’s coming over and Brendon doesn’t know which one he wants to punch more.

“Faith in me to do what, exactly?” Ryan asks, sitting down on Gabe’s other side. Brendon half-expected him to sit beside _him_ , what with how much he’s clearly been talking about him. He can’t figure out why he’s disappointed that he was wrong.

“So as it turns out, Beebo here doesn’t know you that well,” Gabe explains, putting on an exaggeratedly disappointed face.

“Please don’t call me Beebo,” Brendon requests. Seriously, what the fuck was that?

“I never claimed that he did,” Ryan pointed out. “Said he’s my neighbor, never said we were friends.” He leans around Gabe and gives Brendon a small smile. “So how do you like it here so far?”

“I miss my phone,” Brendon grumbles. He’s bored as hell right now. Watching people play four square is only fun for the first ten minutes (he’s assuming it had been ten minutes; he doesn’t have any way of telling time because apparently that would ruin the point of the weekend or something, Brendon’s still confused on that). “And my iPod, why’d I have to give that up?”

“Atmosphere,” Gabe declares flippantly. “Also, iPods tell time now, and connect to Internet, and then suddenly you’re not talking to the people here and you’re not making new friends and that’s boring and also ruins the entire point.”

“And what is the point?” Brendon asks. Right now it seems like the only point of this weekend is to rewire Brendon’s brain, and he really doesn’t want to go through that.

“Excellent question,” Gabe commends him. “I don’t know. Let’s play four square.”

Which is how Brendon learns the fourth thing: he is really, really bad at four square.

Occasionally, he’ll make it to the second square, but only when the ball doesn’t come to him when he’s in the first one. Gabe, however, is excellent at four square, and is in the King spot faster than anybody that Brendon watched.

There is, however, a newcomer whose name tag reads Lauren, and she holds her own extremely well, despite being extremely short and going up against Gabe, William, and someone named Dallon who is just as tall as the other two. She’s easily a foot shorter than the other three people on the court, and yet she manages to last pretty long, longer than William or Dallon.

And then Pete steps onto the court. Brendon’s in the second square again, Lauren’s in the third, and Gabe is engaging Pete in some kind of challenging glare. Gabe bounces the ball, and Brendon prepares to hit it, but before anything can happen, a bell rings from somewhere. A bunch of people make a displeased sound; Brendon assumes that they’re all Team and that they’d been looking forward to the Gabe/Pete showdown.

Pete’s still wearing the fairy costume, with the wand tucked into his back pocket.

“Dinner time!” announces someone in the line, and everybody starts walking together towards what Brendon can only assume is the mess hall.

* * *

Pretty Boy Next Door has, or at least Brendon had _thought_  he has, a brother and two sisters. As it turns out, the boy Brendon thought was Pretty Boy’s brother is actually called Spencer Smith.

Spencer is waiting towards the back of the line, standing right across the deck from Brendon. Brendon’s trying to be inconspicuous, hoping that Spencer doesn’t notice him standing right there. Ryan’s closer up to the front, deep in conversation with a freshman-looking kid with a mop of curly dark hair.

“I’m gonna be honest,” Spencer says suddenly, and Brendon tries not to let it show on his face that he wishes Spencer would leave him alone. “I tried to tell Ryan to stay out of it.”

Brendon shoots his head up to look at Spencer curiously. “What?”

Spencer shrugs. “I’ve known Ryan since I was four. I know why he went over to talk to your parents, Brendon. And I didn’t think it was a good idea.” He leans against the railing, andBrendon notices that Spencer’s hips are _very_  nice. “That being said, I am glad that it worked. Trust me, this is exactly what you need.”

Brendon stiffened. “You have no right to tell me what I need,” he hissed venomously. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

Spencer’s reply is put on hold when a boy wearing the most obnoxious hat Brendon’s ever seen comes their way, clicking one of those little counter things Brendon sees sometimes.

The hat’s a military green cowboy hat, clearly bought at a party store, but also clearly bought a long time ago. It’s also got a stop sign patch on the front, reading the words _let me count you_  handwritten underneath the _STOP_. Brendon really can’t figure out what kind of opinion he should have on this camp when there are boys dressed as fairies and people like Gabe and Frank and a hat like that.

When Cowboy Hat (Brendon forgot to check his name tag) leaves, Spencer’s just looking at Brendon sadly. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” Spencer repeats. “Just like there’s nothing wrong with the rest of us.” Brendon can’t help but feel like there’s a bite of irony in Spencer’s words.

* * *

Brendon doesn’t know what to do with the scene waiting for him inside the dining hall, but he’s pretty sure that he got something wrong with his expectations of this weekend. 

(He has no intention of admitting this to anyone ever, but he can acknowledge that he’s gotten something wrong.)

There are people lined up on either side of the door, welcoming everyone in and placing plastic party favor Leis on each person that walks through the door. Brendon’s is pink; he can’t help but feel like God’s drawing attention to him with it. There are three people playing drums on the floor in the middle of all the tables, and there are boys in grass skirts and plastic coconut bras—there _are_ girls wearing more realistic Leis, but it’s the boys that are wearing the skirts and bras. Once everybody’s inside and circled around the edge of the room, the drums speed up into something more practiced, more intentional, and the boys start dancing towards the center of the circle, in a way that was nowhere near as conservative as it should have been for a church camp. Spencer’s standing beside him, giving him a light nudge with his shoulder.

After a few rounds of this, the music stops, and everyone joins hands. Brendon hears the word “waffle” a couple times, and is shocked to find that both people on either side of him are lacing their fingers together with his. It feels too intimate, especially since they’re both _boys_.

A girl with blonde, shoulder-length hair on the other side of the room speaks up.

“Lord, thank you for getting us all here safely. We’re all so thankful that you brought these Candidates here, that you called each of them to Happening this weekend. Thank you for this food and the chance for us all to gather here to eat it together. Amen.”

It’s the most simple prayer Brendon’s ever heard. Unscripted, casual, and informal; it would never have been accepted by his church back home. Spencer and the boy on Brendon’s other side both gently squeeze Brendon’s hands in their own, and Brendon really can’t help but be extremely confused.

Spencer leads Brendon over to a table without hearing any of the Mormon’s protests. Ryan’s already sitting down, along with the freshman-looking kid he was talking to earlier, the kid in the cowboy hat, Patrick, a lanky boy with glasses, and Frank.

Brendon doesn’t want to sit with Spencer, and he certainly doesn’t want to sit with Ryan, but apparently he doesn’t have a choice. So he sits down and stares at his empty plate.

There’s a little paper umbrella sitting in his glass, but it’s yellow, not pink like his Lei is. Brendon knows how to be thankful for the little things.

“Oh, wow. Three Candidates at one table,” Frank notes, sounding impressed. Brendon doesn’t know why this is a big deal, but he decides not to ask.

Cowboy Hat smiles at Brendon, not paying any attention to Frank’s declaration. In fact, nobody seems to be paying any attention to Frank. They’re all helping themselves to dinner.

“Hi, I’m Gerard,” he introduces. “I don’t think we’ve met yet.”

“Brendon.”

Frank sighs, standing up. “Anybody else here a vegetarian? I’m gonna go get some food I can eat.”

“Uh, I…I am,” Brendon admits cautiously. Frank smiles at him, holding out a hand. “Here, gimme your plate, I’ll go grab you some of whatever’s up there.”

Brendon doesn’t understand why he can’t go up and get his own food, but he’s steadily growing less angry and more nervous, so he’s certain that he’ll trip and spill everything if he gets up himself. He hands Frank his plate wordlessly, staring after him as he goes towards the front of the room.

“So, Ryan, you ready for tonight?” Gerard asks. Pretty Boy shifts uncomfortably, and Brendon can’t help but notice how Spencer watches him concernedly.

“As much as I can be, I guess,” Pretty Boy mumbles.

“Sorry, ready for…what, exactly?” the dark-haired kid asks. Brendon looks for his name tag. _Max_.

“Oh, uh, I’m giving a talk tonight,” Pretty Boy explains, still looking rather uncomfortable.

“The talks this weekend are meant to help you relate everything to your own experiences easier,” Spencer adds. “When you hear about your peers struggling with some of the same ideals you struggle with, and sometimes even hearing about them having the same struggles, it makes everything seem a lot less impossible.”

Brendon can’t help but snort, but he thinks he does a good job covering it up with a cough. Nobody’s having the same struggle he’s having.

“Oh, cool,” Max says with a grin. He glances over to the boy with glasses. “I’m Max, by the way. We didn’t get your name.”

“Mikey,” the boy says. Gerard beams, for some reason. Brendon realizes that they look similar; maybe they’re brothers? He’s not about to make that assumption again, considering that he was clearly wrong about Spencer and Ryan.

Frank comes back, setting a plate down in front of Brendon. “So is it just me or did the maitre d’s kill it?”

“Dude, I was a maitre d’ my first time on Team,” Spencer says, laughing reminiscently. “Most embarrassed I’d ever been in my life.”

Ryan starts coughing, apparently having choked on his tea. Brendon’s poured himself a glass of water, but he’s hoping that water’s not the only caffeine-free choice he’ll be given this weekend.

“I _remember_  that,” Ryan wheezes. “That was my Candidate year, remember? You convinced me to play four square, said you were right behind me, I turned around and you were gone.”

Gerard giggles. “I remember. You looked so betrayed, you thought he’d abandoned you.”

“And then we get in here and you were wearing a grass skirt and a coconut bra, and that is the day that I _died_.”

Frank’s chortling. “I’d say Spence worked that look really well, but Pete was a maitre d’ that year, too. And, well, Pete works everything of that nature better than everyone else.”

“Yeah I do,” Pete interjects, walking past their table with a couple empty glasses.

“Wait, the grass skirts…happens _every_  Happening?” Brendon asks cautiously. “And it’s always the guys in them?”

Spencer nods. “My Candidate year, I thought it was just because there were only three girls on maitre d’, but like, six boys. And I really liked the idea of setting up the meals and everything. And then they made me wear a grass skirt and I almost walked out.”

Ryan places a hand on Spencer’s shoulder, shoulders still shaking with laughter. “I’m glad you didn’t,” he says, as sincere as he can be with that grin spread across his face. “I was but a lowly, scared little Candidate, you know. Really helped me relax, seeing my best friend dressed like a hula dancer.”

“You really put those delicious hips to use,” Patrick adds, joining in the teasing. Brendon balks. That…That sounded…

“Those are Pete’s words,” Spencer accused. “He said that about twenty times that night.”

Patrick shrugged. “He was right.”

It’s not the Christian boot camp Brendon was expecting. This is seven dudes laughing and joking, reminiscing and making new friends. It doesn’t make sense; if this weekend is about finding God, about repentance and rediscovering the Way, then why…

Why was there such a strong sense of camaraderie here?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rector's Address and Please Listen
> 
> Thanks to **geektopia** for letting me read this whole story to her in the car and telling me if something makes no sense. You didn't beta the grammar, but you beta'd everything else.

Brendon had expected to go back to the cabins so they could brush their teeth, but instead Gabe stands up and tells them that they’re all going to be heading to something called the Talk Room. His mouth feels weird already, even though even if they had been going to the cabins he’d have to wait a few minutes to brush his teeth.

“So what do you think’s next?” Max asks Brendon, sidling up beside him. Brendon wants to push him away, but he figures that if he’s in the middle of a conversation then Ryan and Spencer are less likely to rope him into theirs.

Brendon shrugs. “Ryan said he was giving some kind of talk or something, so that might be it.”

Max nods. “True. What do you think it’s gonna be on?”

Brendon’s almost tempted to go and talk to Spencer. He’s got a pouch, at least Brendon can get some candy out of it.

They pass through the Centrum and down a wooden walkway. Brendon wants to know what’s next, when he can go back to the cabin and stare up at the ceiling listlessly as he tries to pretend that he does actually have music. They enter into a large, mostly empty room, with some chairs along the far wall and a table on the wall to Brendon’s left. Some adults are already sitting in the chairs behind the wall, and more are filtering in. Brendon’s about to roll his eyes and just sit down solidly on the ground when he realizes what the band in the corner’s covering. 

“Is that the Killers?” Brendon asks, staring at the band. 

“Oh, dude, I love this song!” Max exclaims, with all the excitement Brendon would expect from a freshman.

_So do I_ , Brendon thinks, moving towards the center of the room. He doesn’t want to sit in the front, but he certainly doesn’t want to sit in the back near all the adults. There’s a projector on a table, and a screen proclaiming _Welcome to Happening!_  and a butterfly in flight. There’s a white podium in one corner, the band in the other. The podium has a butterfly banner hanging from it. Clearly, Happening really likes butterflies. Brendon can’t be bothered to figure out why.

Brendon wants to sit down, but nobody else is yet, and he doesn’t want to be trampled. So he stays standing as the band in the corner covers “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers, which is a song Brendon has to pretend he doesn’t know whenever he’s around his parents. It’s not a Christian song, but they’re singing it at a Christian camp. Brendon doesn’t get it.

“How’s it going?” Brendon looks up to see William, and can’t decide if he’s actually glad to see him or not. Max has drifted up closer towards the front though, so Brendon will take whatever he can get to keep Ryan and Spencer away.

“It’s…”

“Not what you expected?” William fills in for him. Brendon nods. “Good. This weekend’s supposed to surprise you. Glad to see it’s working already.”

Brendon has to admit, he is surprised. Very surprised. He’s seen more dudes in skirts than he’d expected to see in general, much less at church camp. There’s a song that Brendon is  _pretty sure_  is about sex being performed by a group of his peers and _one of the adults_. There was fake flirting at dinner and Frank’s still wearing his Black Sabbath shirt. It doesn’t add up, it doesn’t make sense, this _isn’t right._

_Whatever you’re expecting from a church camp, forget it._

William certainly hadn’t been lying, then.

“Bilvy, hey!” Gabe’s up joining suddenly, slinging an arm around William’s shoulder and wearing a put-upon expression. “I never see you anymore.”

William sighs and rolls his eyes. “Gabe, we walked to dinner together.”

“But that was so _long_  ago,” Gabe whines.

“Gabe, who are you hiding from?” William asks, bored.

“Vicky-T may or may not have seen my talk and is now speaking with Navarro and I’m scared.”

“What’s wrong with your talk?” Brendon asks, unable to help himself. He doesn’t know who Vicky-T is, but if he recalls correctly, Gabe owes her money.

“Absolutely nothing,” Gabe answers innocently. “Jenna likes it.”

Brendon doesn’t know who Jenna is either, but he’s slowly learning that Gabe’s judgement on ‘something wrong’ is a little bit skewed from a normal person’s judgement.

Then again, everybody else’s judgment on ‘something wrong’—at least here—seems pretty skewed from what Brendon’s been raised on. So maybe it’s his judgement that’s off.

“Oh, look, people are sitting down,” William says, in a perfect deadpan, nodding over to somewhere near the door. Gabe gasps dramatically.

“How _dare_  they?” he demands, turning and heading in the direction of two people that are, in fact, sitting down.

William turns back to Brendon and shrugs. “Guess we’ll find out what Gabe said about Victoria in a bit, won’t we?”

“How many talks are gonna be tonight?” Brendon asks, looking up at the podium, which Gabe is heading towards now, after having gotten the two people to stand.

William shrugs. “You ask a lot of questions about the schedule and time,” he notes. “Did you know that?”

Brendon doesn’t get to respond, because the music stops and Gabe’s standing in the front of the room saying, “The Lord be with you.”

The room responds stops their chatter immediately and responds, “And also with you.” Brendon doesn’t know how everyone, even Max across the room, know exactly how to reply. Gabe grins, and Brendon thinks it looks like the grin of a man who’s about to abuse the power that’s been given to him.

“Welcome to Happening!” Gabe announces. Some people cheer; Brendon’s pretty sure they’re all team, because William’s one of them. “Is our beautiful band ready?”

“Always,” responds one of the singers.

“Oh, is that a hint?” Gabe jokes. “Let’s make some music!” He steps back into the crowd, moving towards the wall to avoid getting in the way of some of the shorter people. Brendon thinks it’s very considerate of him.

They do three songs, and Brendon’s never heard of any of them. He was expecting typical hymns, with an organ and everything, but instead what he gets is a full band with a bass and two guitars and a drum kit, and there are hand movements for one of the songs and a standard clap-along for the other two. William’s looking at Brendon out of the corner of his eye, he started about halfway through the first song; it makes Brendon shift uncomfortably.

When the music’s over, the guitars get placed back into cases and the musicians join the crowd. Brendon’s never been more grateful to sit down on the ground in his life.

There’s a skit afterwards, some kind of gameshow thing where the contestant has to guess the identities of various “celebrities” and somehow manages to get them all wrong (Brendon would have gotten them all wrong, too; he only hears about almost all of them at school because their names aren’t allowed in the Urie household), until the end, where the contestant gets it right because the last person’s wearing a name tag.

When it’s over, some people still snickering at the celebrity impressions, Gabe stands back up, this time behind the white podium.

“I’ve already said this,” he starts. “But I’ll say it again: welcome to Happening 69. Don’t laugh, I think we’re technically not supposed to know what that means.” Brendon thinks this may be the talk that Vicky-T, whoever that was, was unhappy with. “My name is Gabe Saporta, and I am your Rector this weekend. Now, I can see some of you thinking, ‘How is that tall Uruguayan beauty a Rector? He’s only seventeen!’ Not that kind of Rector. My job is to stand up here and talk to all of you, tell you all what we’re going to do, introduce our talkers, and just sort of be here.

“To continue with the introductions: my partners-in-crime, Victoria Asher and Jenna Black.” One girl stands up somewhere in the center of the room and waves. William nudges Brendon’s arm and points towards the back, where there’s another girl waving. Brendon recognizes her as the girl from check-in, the one with the clipboard. “Vicky-T is our Head Gopher, without whom _none_  of this weekend would be even remotely possible. All the snacks you’ll be eating, any materials for any activities you’ll be doing, it’s all because of her. You’ll hardly ever see her, because she’s always in her Gopher Hole, making sure that this weekend continues to run smoothly. Jenna is our Chaplain, our spiritual backbone, the light of the weekend, I’m not getting paid to say that…” Gabe has a very strange sense of humor, Brendon decides. “She’s been praying for all of you nonstop since last Happening ended—probably even longer. And she’ll continue praying nonstop all weekend, and probably long after that.

“Up next we have Gerard Way. He’s pretty easy to identify with his cute little hat. His job is to make sure that we get everywhere we need to get when we need to get there. He’s the only one with a watch, but he won’t tell you what time it is. He’s just gonna make sure we get to make the most out of our weekend here. He’s also responsible for counting everyone before each new activity. Remember, we can’t start without you.

Gabe spends another minute on introductions, introducing some adults, including a photographer (Brendon has no desire to look at pictures of this weekend, so he doesn’t care about him), a spiritual director (Brendon _really_  doesn’t care about him), and the Happening Coordinator, who is apparently really cool.

“And now, some rules.” Gabe groans, along with a couple other people. “I know, I know. We wanna be safe, we wanna have fun, we don’t want to drown in the lagoon, and Victoria says nobody wants to see me skinny dip in the pool, although I’m sure she’s just exaggerating.” She’s not; Brendon absolutely does not want to see Gabe skinny dip in the pool. “All my predecessors have just read the Community Covenant out loud, but you didn’t read it when you signed it, didn’t read it when you resigned it at check-in, you’re not gonna listen to it when I’m reading it. Basically, no phones, iPods, watches, any other time-telling devices or devices that allow communication with the outside world. No ‘purpling,’ which is just our way of no sexy fun times, but because purple is specifically pink girls and blue boys, I’m going to expand on that with navy blue and magenta, so all you same-sex couples don’t try to loophole your way out of trouble.” Brendon’s eyes widen in shock. Gabe made it sound like the only reason homosexual sex isn’t allowed is because it’s sex—like it wasn’t an implied thing, like it wasn’t…

_Like it’s not a sin._

Brendon checks out for a minute, thinking about this new revelation. _No, Gabe’s just joking._  They seem open enough to joke about it here, but a sin is a sin. The Bible was clear.

When he checks back in, Gabe’s saying, “Now, since you all showed up, I’m sure you’ve been asking: what is Happening? To all you I say: excellent question.” He steps away from the podium, and continues. “It’s like a sunset. I’m sure you’ve all seen a truly gorgeous sunset. The sky painted in pinks and purples and oranges, and maybe you’re at the lake or a river or the beach, and the reflection over the water is just too much for you to _not_  share with somebody? Except when you try to describe it to your friends, they’re all just staring at you like, ‘It’s just a sunset, bro.’” Brendon doesn’t think he’s ever tried to describe a sunset to anybody, that just seems weird. “They weren’t there with you to experience it, they don’t know what’s so special about _your_  sunset that makes it better than all the other sunsets, they just aren’t gonna get the full picture.

“And so it is with Happening. None of the individual parts are gonna sound like much. It’s just singing, it’s just a bunch of talks, it’s just games and food and friends. But it isn’t. It’s something so much more, something that can’t be described. So don’t try. Don’t even think about what’s going on. Just sit back, and let it Happen.” There’s that bad pun again; Brendon was right, it’s intentionally awful.

He has to admit (begrudgingly) that Gabe probably has a point, about the weekend being hard to explain. He certainly isn’t sure he’ll be able to manage, although that may just be the unwillingness to tell his parents about the grass skirts and Pete.

Gabe walks out of the building, which Brendon thinks is kind of weird. But before he can think too much into the rather sudden disappearance of their so-called “Rector,” a group of people are moving up to the front of the room. They seem excited. 

Of fucking course they’re excited. Everyone’s excited. Gabe explained why nobody’s bothering to answer any of Brendon’s questions, but he didn’t explain what was so fucking great about this stupid church camp. 

They explain the motions for some basic dance thing, which Brendon is absolutely certain he’s not going to enjoy (they call the dance an “energizer;” Brendon calls it “fucking stupid”). Then the music starts up, and Brendon’s knows it’s a band called Toto because he listens to all the music he’s not supposed to listen to when his parents aren’t home. Which means that _he isn’t supposed to be listening to it._  And they’re playing it, at a church camp. Just like they played Mr. Brightside by the Killers earlier. What the fuck?

When the dance is over, Gabe (when did he get back in?) stands back up at the front and says grandly, “To the Centrum!” Everyone makes for the door, and no sooner than they get out does Brendon start feeling a bit cold, even with his still-fuzzy-inside new hoodie.

“You good?” Ryan asks him, coming up to his right. Brendon has half a mind to ignore him.

Instead, he shrugs. “’S cold,” he says brusquely, wrapping his arms around himself.

Ryan nods. “You should complain to Pete,” he suggests. “He’ll drape himself all over you like an extremely bulky coat.”

“I’m good, thanks,” Brendon states drily. He may be starting to realize that this retreat isn’t as strict as his church is, but he doubts that having Pete clinging to him would go over well with the few adults he’s seen. Also, having a Pete stuck to him doesn’t sound convenient or comfortable.

Ryan shrugs. “Just a thought.” As they step off the wooden ramp, he adds, “You seem a bit less uncomfortable than you did a few hours ago.” Brendon looks up at him sharply, but Ryan’s staring straight ahead. “I’m glad,” he continues, when Brendon doesn’t say anything. “It’s going to be a long weekend if you spend it all tense and worried, you know?”

_It’s going to be a long weekend anyway,_  Brendon thinks. Out loud, he just says, “Yeah, well.”

They get to the Centrum, where Brendon recognizes some members of the band and the people that had led the dancing earlier. He can see Patrick and two people he doesn’t know playing drums, with a few others crowded near them. Everybody else is forming a loose circle around the edge of the Centrum, and Brendon and Ryan join the circle, with Spencer on Ryan’s other side, and the girl Lauren from the earlier games of four square on Brendon’s. She smiles up at him.

“Do you have any idea what’s going on?” she whispers to him. “Because I’ve tried asking, and nobody’s bothered to tell me.”

“I asked William earlier,” Brendon replies. “He told me I ask a lot of questions.”

Lauren laughs. “Yeah, that’s what Josh told me, too.” She sighs and looks over at someone across the circle. “Also, he said, ‘Come to Happening, Lo. You’ll love it, it’s great.’ And then they took my iPod.”

“I know, right?” Brendon agrees vehemently. “This guy,” he adds, pointing behind him at Ryan, “came over, all ‘This’ll be great for you, it’s exactly what you need!’ or something ridiculous like that, but forgets to mention, ‘oh, by the way, watches, phones, and iPods are prohibited!’” He leaves out the part about Ryan telling his _parents_  that this weekend is exactly what he needs, because that part seems irrelevant.

Lauren rolls her eyes. “Josh’s been lording it over me that he knows all these things that are going on, too,” she adds, exasperated. “I’d ask him if he wanted to do something, and he’d say, ‘ _can’t, sorry, working on some Happening stuff,_ ’ but every single time I asked him what kind of Happening stuff, he’d just laugh and ignore me.”

“The weekend is full of secrets and surprises,” the kid on Lauren’s other side cuts in. He smiles at them. “Tyler.” He holds out a hand. Lauren takes it first, introducing herself, then Brendon does the same. “You’re talking about Josh Hoisington, right?” Tyler asks Lauren, who nods. “You’re really gonna like the Happening stuff he’s been working on, if that helps.” He looks like he maybe wants to say something more specific, but doesn’t.

“And the infamous Brendon,” he declares, making Brendon shift uncomfortably. “Hi.”

Brendon had been expecting more, especially with Ryan right beside him. But Tyler just leaves it at that, leaving Brendon at a bit of a loss.

Gerard walks by then, again with the counter he had at dinner, just going around the circle and counting.

“So i’m guessing you won’t tell us what we’re about to do, either?” Brendon asks Tyler. He figured it was worth a shot, if only as a half-hearted attempt to keep the conversation going.

Except Tyler answers, saying, “Just a few icebreaker games. Nothing major, nothing especially spiritual until we go back in.”

Brendon resolves to ask Tyler all of his questions about what’s going on for the rest of the weekend. Clearly, Tyler is a good enough person to explain. William, Ryan, Spencer, and Gabe can all go fuck off. And Ryan can fuck off again.

One of the people in the center of the circle says, “The Lord be with you,” and it’s a repeat of what Gabe did in the Talk Room, everyone going silent to respond.

Brendon has no idea what they do next. It’s explained as some African thing, but he has no idea what the words are and so they all come out mumbled. There are three parts and they all mean something different, and there’s hand movements and walking and Brendon’s just totally lost until they finish and get told they can sit down. Personally, Brendon wants to go back inside. It’s too cold to be sitting on the concrete. There’s a few more games, a lot of running around and dancing and rock, paper, scissors and there’s a milk crate that everybody’s saying is a magical trashcan and Brendon’s still freezing. But he wins one round of the Ultimate Rock, Paper, Scissors game, which was pretty satisfying.

They head back inside, and Tyler’s next to Brendon again. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asks. 

Brendon shrugs. “I…I just, I _really_  didn’t want to come,” he admits, quietly enough that he’s sure nobody else can hear him. In fact, he’s not entirely sure Tyler does.

But then Tyler tugs on his sleeve to get him to slow down. “Wanna know a secret, Brendon?” he asks, just as quiet. Brendon nods. “I didn’t either, my first year. My brother told me I should go, and I figured, Zack came, he saw, he conquered. May as well try, right?

“But I didn’t actually want to. But I’m observing Jenna this weekend. Next Happening, _I’m_  the Chaplain. And I wouldn’t be doing that if I still didn’t want to come.” Brendon’s silent as they make it up the ramp. There are cans of soda lined up on the rail, and Tyler grabs a can of Coke. Brendon goes for a can of Sunkist, because he isn’t sure that having his first taste of caffeine at however late it is is the best idea. “My point is,” Tyler continues, “don’t just write this weekend off. You’re going to have fun. And maybe you won’t feel any closer to God by Sunday—not _everybody_  does, nobody’s going to judge you for it. But whatever it is, you’ll be more comfortable about your spirituality then you are right now.”

That…actually doesn’t sound impossible. It’s the first thing Brendon’s heard since he got out of his parents’ car that he actually has no trouble believing. He nods. “Thank you.”

Tyler just smiles.

Everybody is already sitting down, which Brendon thinks is weird, given how affronted Gabe had gotten earlier. Tyler sends him another smile before slipping through the crowd and finding Gabe up near the band.

Brendon sits down, looking around at all the other people. They’re all just talking, laughing with each other, and they all seem to be genuinely having fun. He can hear snatches of the conversations nearest him, favorite classes and plans for college and stories about work—normal things that he hears every day at school.

“Have you figured it out yet?”

Brendon starts, not having noticed anyone sit down next to him. He looks over, and sees Mikey from dinner. “Figured…what out, exactly?” he asks, confused. The answer’s probably no; he hasn’t really figured anything out yet.

“Why everyone keeps coming back,” Mikey explains. “Because it’s Gerard’s seventh time, and so far I can’t see what appealed to him to come back for a second.”

_Seven times?_  Brendon repeats in his head. _Oh hell fucking no._  “I’ve got nothing,” he admits. “Although the games were pretty fun.” He looks around for Ryan, hoping he isn’t within earshot. He isn’t. He’s talking to one of the adults. Brendon’s pretty sure Gabe had said his name was Mark, the spiritual director. Spencer’s standing beside him.

Mikey scoffs. “Games involving human interaction aren’t Gee’s thing,” he says, looking over to where Gerard’s talking to Frank, waving his arms around enthusiastically. “And he’s going to have Gabe’s job next Happening, apparently. It’s like he’s a completely different person, here.”

Brendon shrugs. He doesn’t know Ryan or Spencer well enough to be able to say that they’re completely different people, but he knows that he doesn’t feel too particularly different yet. “Maybe he’s just more comfortable here,” he suggests, thinking back to what Tyler had said on the way in.

“Yeah, maybe,” Mikey agrees, just as Gabe steps away from the band and quiets the room again.

“Alright, so, now we’re going to have Tyler Joseph give us the Please Listen talk,” Gabe tells the room. Tyler stands up and walks up to the podium as Gabe sits down.

“Don't be fooled by me,” Tyler starts, voice strong. “Don’t be fooled by the face I wear, for I wear a mask, a thousand masks, masks that I'm afraid to take off, and none of them is me.

“Pretending is an art that's second nature with me, but don't be fooled, for God's sake don't be fooled. I give you the impression that I'm secure, that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without, that confidence is my name and coolness my game, that the water’s calm and I'm in command and that I need no one, but don't believe me. My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask, ever-varying and ever-concealing. Beneath lies no complacence. Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness. But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it. I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed. That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind, a nonchalant sophisticated facade, to help me pretend, to shield me from the glance that knows.

“But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope, and I know it. That is, if it's followed by acceptance, if it's followed by love. It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself, from my own self-built prison walls, from the barriers I so painstakingly erect. It's the only thing that will assure me of what I can't assure myself, that I'm really worth something. But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to, I'm afraid to. I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance, will not be followed by love. I'm afraid you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me. I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing and that you will see this and reject me.

“So I play my game, my desperate pretending game, with a facade of assurance without and a trembling child within. So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks, and my life becomes a front. I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk. I tell you everything that's really nothing, and nothing of what's everything, of what's crying within me. So when I'm going through my routine do not be fooled by what I'm saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying, what I'd like to be able to say, what for survival I need to say, but what I can't say.

“I don't like hiding. I don't like playing superficial phony games. I want to stop playing them. I want to be genuine and spontaneous and _me_  but you've got to help me. You've got to hold out your hand even when that's the last thing I seem to want. Only you can wipe away from my eyes the blank stare of the breathing dead. Only you can call me into aliveness. Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging, each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings—very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings!

“With your power to touch me into feeling you can breathe life into me. I want you to know that. I want you to know how important you are to me, how you can be a creator—an honest-to-God creator—of the person that is me if you choose to. You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble, you alone can remove my mask, you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic, from my lonely prison, if you choose to. Please choose to.

“Do not pass me by. It will not be easy for you. A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. The nearer you approach to me the blinder I may strike back. It's irrational, but despite what the books say about man, often I am irrational. I fight against the very thing I cry out for. But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls and in this lies my hope. Please try to beat down those walls with firm hands—but with gentle hands, for a child is very sensitive.

“Who am I, you may wonder? I am someone you know very well. For I am every man you meet and I am every woman you meet. I am me, and I am you. Do not be fooled by what I’m saying. Please listen to what I’m not saying.”

Tyler finishes, and the room applauds. Tyler leaves the room, the same as Gabe had earlier, and Brendon stares after him. _I’m not wearing a mask_ , he thinks sulkily. But he can’t help but think about the fact that yes, he is. He wonders if by telling everyone here that he doesn’t _need_  to be here, and with all the team having probably heard a similar talk before, if it’s incredibly obvious to all of them that…

_No_ , he scolds himself. _I don’t need this._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please Listen talk adapted from the poem "Please Hear What I Am Not Saying" by Charles C. Finn (according to google search)
> 
> If you think I'm exaggerating how quickly everyone shut up when Gabe said "the Lord be with you" then you've clearly never been in a room full of Episcopalians that needed to be quieted. Try it some time, it's hilarious.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reality

“So this is called the Name Game,” explains a girl named Ash, holding a squishy stress ball. They’ve divided into small groups, and they’re back out in the Centrum, each small group gathered in a circle. “Pick someone in the circle, say their name, and throw them the ball. Josh,” she adds, throwing it to the guy on Brendon’s left. He thinks it might be Lauren’s friend, but there are actually two Joshes here, so he has no way of knowing.

Josh catches the ball, then tosses it, saying “Dallon.”

One of the tall kids that was playing four square earlier catches the ball. He looks at everyone’s name tags before tossing the ball to someone named Alex.

Brendon gets it from a girl named Hayley and tosses it to a boy named Jack.

When Ash has the ball again, she says, “So we’re going to do that again, tossing it to the same people. We’re gonna get faster, and then I’m gonna throw in some more balls. Got it?” Everyone nods. “Josh.”

Chaos ensues, especially when there get to be four balls flying across the circle at once. Brendon’s reflexes aren’t as good as he’d like them to be, and Hayley and Jack are on opposite sides of the circle. It’s hard to keep an eye on Hayley for a ball flying at his face while also looking at Jack to make sure that the ball goes to him. But everyone’s laughing, and even he’s smiling a little bit.

Ash is definitely Team, he’s sure he recognizes Hayley as one of the girls he saw carrying someone else’s bags at check in (her hair doesn’t exactly blend in), and Josh may or may not be Lauren’s Josh, but other than that he can’t tell who’s Team and who’s a Candidate. Maybe that’s the point.

How many of them know him as Ryan’s neighbor, the one who’s here because his parents forced him to be?

“Alright,” Ash says finally, putting all the balls back into the basket she’s got. She pulls out a CD in a purple jewel case. “This is a blooper reel. We’re going to pass this around, and each person’s going to share a story of a time they goofed something up. I’ll go first.” She tells them all about the time she went to the beach and thought she saw a shark in the water, but it ended up just being a clump of seaweed. She hands the CD over to a girl named Melanie, who tells them about the time she accidentally used her brother’s weed stash to season a pizza because she thought it was oregano (“I was like, ten, at the time, okay?”)

By the time it gets to Brendon, he’s tempted to say _I came out to my parents, they screamed a lot, Ryan heard because he lives next door to me, and he came over and convinced my parents to force me to this hell camp_ , but everybody here seems to be at least _acting_ like they genuinely want to be his friend, and he’d rather not lose that just because he’s inherently a sinner. So instead, he says, “I tried to do a back flip into a pool a couple years ago, but I ended up belly flopping. My entire chest and stomach was just bright red.” Some of them laugh, and some wince in sympathy, same as with all the other stories going around. He passes the disc to Josh, wondering if it counts as lying if it never comes up.

When Ash has the CD again, she puts it back in her basket and pulls out a stack of papers and some colorful gel pens. “Last thing. First impressions. You’re going to write down the names of everybody in this group, and your first impression of them. You can include me or not, I’m actually one of the Activity Gophers. You’ll look at them again at the end of the weekend to see how accurate you were.”

Some of them, Brendon finds, are easy. Hayley is expressive, Melanie is creative, Dallon is soft-spoken. Josh and Jack are harder, so he puts Jack as _funny_ because his blooper made him laugh easiest and Josh as _kind-hearted_ because between games he told Hayley a story about the animal shelter he volunteers at. The good thing about first impressions, Brendon decides, is that they’re allowed to be completely wrong. He also goes ahead and writes in Ash’s name, writing _great leader._

They hand the papers and pens back to Ash, who puts them in her basket and looks around the Centrum. A couple of the other groups are standing up, so Ash stands, and so do they. Ash yawns wide. “Man, it’s been a long day,” she says.

“Tomorrow’s longer,” Hayley replies with a grin. Ash rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, well. Let’s go hear RyRo tell us about the Truth,” she replies with a grin, “so I can go to bed.”

* * *

Everyone looks pretty exhausted, Brendon realizes, even Gabe. Ryan’s sitting in the corner by the door, arms around his knees, looking out across the room. He looks scared; as angry as Brendon’s been with him, he wants to sit next to him and make sure he’s okay.

“Spence and Jon already in the chapel?” asks Hayley, beating Brendon to the punch and sitting down in front of Ryan.

Ryan nods. “It seemed easy, when I asked to do it,” he whispers. Brendon walks away—this conversation seems too personal for him to be listening in on.

“How you doing, little Beebo?”

Brendon looks up at Gabe, who he’d apparently accidentally bumped into. “I told you not to call me that,” he says, instead of trying to answer the question. He’s not entirely sure how he’s doing right now.

“You did,” Gabe agrees. “I ignored you.”

“Can you please not call me that again?” Brendon tries.

“I hear your request,” Gabe replies. “I will probably not remember it in the morning.” Of course not.

“Right,” Brendon says skeptically. Gabe probably will remember in the morning, it’s not that hard. He’ll just ignore him again. He backs away from Gabe, who doesn’t seem to notice because he’s turned around to talk to a girl with blonde hair that Brendon remembers vaguely as being Jenna, the Chaplain.

He backs right into Gerard, who steadies him quickly with a hurried, “Sorry,” before he’s gone, talking to the adults sitting at the table in the back. Despite the curtain of exhaustion that’s settled around the Talk Room, there’s still a kind of excited chaotic hum buzzing like an undercurrent.

The excitement appears to have skipped over Brendon entirely, but he’s not planning on complaining.

Gabe stands up at the front and quiets the room, then steps off to the side as the band starts playing something. It’s slow, and Brendon isn’t sure if the point was to calm them down or not, but all it really does is make him even more tired than he was when he walked into the room.

When the song ends, Gabe stands up and says, “Now we’re going to have Ryan Ross, with the Reality Talk.” He sits down, and Ryan stands up behind the podium.

“Funny word, reality,” he starts. “It’s such a small word, a word we throw around seemingly without any clear intent, a word that we think we understand and so we use it as often as we wish. A small word. But a massive concept.

“If you asked a dictionary what the word ‘reality’ means, the most it can give you is, the state of being real. Now, that is the most useless definition I have ever read, so thank you, Oxford Dictionary, for all your hard work.” A laugh goes through the room; even Brendon cracks a smile. “So we’re going to pretend I didn’t try to find a decent definition of a word we’ve all been throwing around since we were six.

“This big concept of reality can be broken into three separate categories. One is incredibly easy to understand, one is harder than it needs to be, and the third is only as hard as it is because we’re overthinking it. The first: physical reality. Like I said, easy. This is what our science considers ‘real’—matter and physics and the like. Physically real means it’s something you can see, something you can touch, something you can feel. It’s tangible, it’s sensible—that is, able to be sensed. And that’s it. Me, you, your shoes, this podium. Physically real.

“It’s this second kind that people have trouble with. Social reality. Now, this is where my predecessors have brought up drugs, alcohol, depression—self-harm and suicide—all forms of addiction, bad friends, peer pressure. I am not my predecessors. I haven’t gotten into drugs and alcohol, I’m not struggling with self-harm or suicidal thoughts, and my friends accept when I don't want to do something. So instead of bringing up these things, I’m going to talk about my reality. My own personal social reality.

“And that is that I’m from a very, _very_ broken home. I used to live with my mother and my father, the three of us in some sort of pseudo-happiness—not that I knew at the time that it wasn’t genuine. My father was an alcoholic, he was abusive and angry and incoherently drunk almost all the time. I came home from school one day, and my mother was packing. I was happy, indescribably happy, to be getting away from the monster that was my dad, and then.

“And then. My mom kissed my forehead, told me she loved me, and she walked out the front door. I was not getting away from my father, I was being left alone with him. That was…” Ryan pauses, taking a deep breath. “Unexpected. Undesired, certainly. I haven’t heard from my mother since about a month after my twelfth birthday. My dad, though, he only got worse. I didn’t have my mother to take the brunt of the attacks, I didn’t have her there to protect me from his fists, from his words, from his unbridled rage.

“My saving grace was the boy who sat next to me on the bus, a boy who’d been my friend since I was five. He lived on my street, and we played together on weekends and after school. But I never, in six years, told my friend, my best friend, about my father. Not until I came in to school with a bruise on my arm, totally visible to everyone. The teachers accepted that I fell, but this boy on the bus, insightful beyond his eleven years, refused my lies. I’ll never forget the first time he asked about the first bruise he saw. He didn’t say, ‘What happened?’ He said, ‘Did your dad do that to you?’

“Never let anybody tell you that Spencer Smith is anything less than the most insightful and shrewd person you’ll ever meet.

“Anyway, needless to say, I started spending every second I could get away with at the Smith residence. I never did find out how he knew about my dad, because his parents never talked about it in front of him or his sisters. But it never really mattered to me, because that one question opened a door—their front door, specifically. The whole family welcomed me with open arms, practically adopted me without question.

“And when I got home from school one day, fifteen years old and angry at the world, only to be greeted with ambulances and the news that my father had drunk himself to death, I didn’t even have to ask before I was officially living with Spencer and his family. Less than a year later, I was officially adopted, just because it was easier than emancipation or trying to find my mom.

“If you managed to miss all of that,” Ryan clears his throat, letting his voice get stronger from where it had started cracking under the pain of harsh memories, “then the social reality can really be summed up as such: life sucks. I don’t care if you’re an optimist, life sucks. And that’s it. There’s nothing anybody can do. Social reality sucks. Your life is going to fall apart at some point, and for a lot of people, that some point is right now, in high school.

“Now, the third kind of reality, the one that is only as hard as we make it? This is spiritual reality, and the thing about spiritual reality is that it’s absolutely impossible to figure out without realizing the fundamental truth of social reality. Because I’ve figured out that life sucks, I’ve had that one figured out for a while. But what I didn’t figure out was that Spencer Smith was literally God’s gift to me. Without him, I don’t know where I’d be—dead or on the other side of the country or _something._

“The spiritual reality is that God isn’t abandoning us, even when our lives are falling apart and we’re at rock bottom. It’s that he’s right here, right by our side, offering us aid disguised as a know-it-all kid with two annoying little sisters, helping to pick us up and carry us along. If the social reality is that life sucks, then the spiritual reality is that God is always by our side to make life suck just a tiny bit less. Amen.”

Brendon stares at Ryan as he walks out the door into the chill air, and can’t stop staring after him even as the band starts playing another song.

* * *

The next morning, Brendon wakes up to the ringing of a bell. Rather, he hears a bell ringing, buries his head under his pillow in an attempt to ignore it and go back to sleep, and five minutes later hears Gabe, who must have come in sometime last night after Brendon crashed, shouting, “GOOD MORNING STARSHINE, THE EARTH SAYS HELLO!”

Brendon starts so violently he crashes to the floor, taking his blanket with him. Above him, from the bed next to his, a boy who’d introduced himself last night as David snorts a laugh.

Gabe claps his hands together and says, at a (thankfully) much lower volume, “Come on, breakfast doesn’t start until we’re all there, and I’m starving, which means it better not be any of you that breakfast is waiting on.”

That made very little sense to Brendon’s half-asleep brain, but he did catch “breakfast,” and he is really hungry. So he clambers gracelessly to his feet and throws the blanket haphazardly onto the bed, not bothering to make it up. David rolls out of his bed, too, and slings an arm around Brendon’s shoulder. “Uh…hi?” Why does it seem like _nobody_ has any respect for personal space around here?

“Hello,” he greets back. There’s a slight accent Brendon can’t place, but he isn’t curious enough to ask about it. “Is it just me, or is Gabe slightly crazy?”

“It’s just you!” Gabe calls. “I am full crazy, and frankly, I’m offended that you would dare use the word ‘slightly’ to define any of my phenomenal characteristics.”

Brendon stares. David waves the hand not around Brendon’s shoulders and says, “Very true. Terribly sorry.”

Gabe’s eyes narrow, studying the pair of them for a moment. Then he shrugs. “Don’t do it again,” he warns, walking out of the room.

Brendon has to agree with Gabe, though—he’s not ‘slightly crazy,’ he’s certifiably insane.

He grabs a pair of jeans and a t-shirt out of his suitcase, changing out of his sweatpants as quickly as possible. He’d glad that he already took his shower the night before, even if he was practically dead on his feet the whole time. David’s getting dressed, too, whistling cheerfully as he rummages through his suitcase for something. Brendon wonders how he’s so awake already.

“How are you so awake already?”

David glances back at him. “This may be my first Happening, but I’ve been to plenty of other events like it. You become an early riser, even if only in this place.”

“Lies!” Gabe shouts from the hallway. “Slander! There are no other events like Happening, Boyd!”

Brendon starts, because a) he wasn’t expecting Gabe to start yelling again, and b) Gabe just shouted his middle name, which he shouldn’t know, and it’s not like Brendon did anything wrong anyway.

“That’s not what Andy said at New Beginnings,” David defends himself.

Gabe comes back in, looking thoughtful. Brendon can see everybody else in the cabin watching the three of them. He kind of wants to hide under the bed.

“I will make an allowance for New Beginnings,” Gabe concedes finally. “I’ve never been, personally, but I know that Hurley and Mix favor that one, and I trust their judgement.”

“Wait, what’s New Beginnings?” Brendon asks after a moment, when everybody else has gone back to what they were doing before.

“It’s another event where the whole weekend’s dedicated to strengthening ties with God,” Gabe explains, looking over at David, who nods. “But it’s for middle schoolers, so I’d expect that there are some major differences between the two.”

“Talks are shorter there,” David supplies. “And the whole event starts Saturday morning and ends Sunday after dinner.”

Brendon thinks that if there’s a middle school version of Happening, it would account for a lot of the people at this one. If you start brainwashing them early, it’ll definitely stick.

“Is there an elementary school thing, too?” he asks, trying not to sound as sickened by the thought as he actually is.

Gabe shakes his head. “There’s a summer camp that opens up at rising third grade, but Vicky-T says that it’s hardly even a church camp.”

“Didn’t she say that the male music coordinator wore a dress for no reason at some point?” asks someone from the other side of the room. Brendon can’t see his name tag, but he’s wearing a gopher pouch.

“Wait, Vicky-T’s got a crossdressing story too?” Gabe asks. “I just remember that Pete’s Cub Scout Day Camp had a crossdressing male leader for their skits at the end of every day.”

If Pete was exposed to crossdressing at Cub Scout age, that really explains a lot, Brendon thinks.

The gopher shrugs, kinda-sorta half-assedly making his bed before walking out of the room.

“How did I manage to miss all the crossdressing adults in my formative years?” Gabe asks the room at large. Nobody answers. Brendon decides it’s for the best to just leave, and try to find his way to the dining hall himself.

He steps onto the porch, still pulling his jacket on, and almost turns back around to deal with Gabe for another five minutes. Ryan and Spencer are just a couple steps ahead, walking down the trail that leads to the road. Brendon tries to be as quiet as possible, not getting their attention. He doesn’t really feel like having Ryan ask ‘how are you enjoying it?’, especially not on a Saturday morning where it’s early enough that the sun constitutes as ‘barely up.’

All of Brendon’s plans of stealth disappear when, right before he hits the road, he slips on a tree branch or a leaf or something and falls on his ass, sliding all the way to the bottom of the sloping path. Ryan and Spencer turn around and immediately help him up, asking him if he’s okay.

“I’m assuming you don’t want our help getting all the dirt off your butt,” Spencer says bluntly.

Brendon feels his face flush. “No thanks,” he says, trying to get it himself. Ryan punches Spencer in the arm, but Spencer’s grinning.

“So, how was wake up?” Ryan asks, once they start walking again. “Because we could hear Gabe shouting his Willy Wonka crap from our cabin.”

“There is nothing more genuinely terrifying than being in the shower and all of a sudden hearing Gabe Saporta shouting,” Spencer says.

“Being half asleep and hearing Gabe Saporta shouting in the same room as you?” Brendon tries.

Ryan looks thoughtful. “I mean, Gabe Saporta’s voice when you’re naked definitely carries a different kind of terror,” he allows.

“Gabe Saporta’s _anything_ when you’re naked is terrifying,” Spencer points out. “At any rate, I jumped so hard that I fell. Do you know how embarrassing it is to fall _out of a shower_?”

Ryan shrugged. “I was the only one in the bathroom at the time, and it’s not like there’s anything there I haven’t seen before.”

Spencer glares at him. “Nobody asked your opinion, Ross.”

Ryan waved him off. “Anyway, sorry you’ve got Gabe in your cabin, Brendon,” he says, changing the subject entirely. “I’d say you’ll get used to him, but that’s a complete and total lie, so.”

“There is no getting used to Gabe,” Spencer sighs. “I’ve tried.”

“How do you think I feel?” asks a boy behind them. He’s wearing a gopher pouch, and his name tag reads _Nate_.

Spencer and Ryan make twin faces of sympathy. “That sucks,” they say, at the same time. Brendon’s a little creeped out by the twinspeak thing, but he’s still trying to figure out why Nate’s got it worse than anyone else on the Gabe front.

“Brendon, this is Nate,” Spencer says, taking the initiative to remember that Brendon’s there. “He’s Gabe’s personal Gopher.”

“Gabe’s personal _babysitter_ more like,” Nate mutters, holding out a hand. “Rector always gets their own gopher, because they’ve got so much going on. I’m basically an extra set of hands, but because it’s Gabe, I’m really just suffering.”

“The bottom line is that if you pray for nothing else this whole weekend, pray for Nate,” Ryan concludes. “Because his poor soul has to deal with Gabe for the entire weekend, with breaks few and far between.”

“It’s also important to note that our weekend started Thursday evening,” Spencer adds. “And ends about an hour after you all go home tomorrow.”

Brendon has never felt more secondhand pain for anyone in his entire life than he does right now. He can’t even handle Gabe in small doses.

They’ve made it to the dining hall deck, where there are only a few people already waiting in line. Nate looks at the doors longingly. “Do you think if I go in they’ll let me get my coffee now?”

Spencer snorts. “Maitre d’s hoard that like liquid gold until those doors open,” he points out. “And they don’t let anybody in early anyway. Their work is a surprise.”

“Their mornings _don’t change_ ,” Ryan complains. He rests his head on Spencer’s shoulder. “You know the trade secrets, Smith. Go in there and get coffee.”

“And miss watching you suffer another fifteen minutes?” Spencer asks. “Never.”

“Spencer, please,” Nate begs, clasping his hands in front of him and putting them in Spencer’s face. “ _Please,_ Spencer.”

“Gabe’s not even here, yet,” Spencer pointed out.

As if summoned, Gabe called from the bottom of the stairs, “I am here, people! Let the festivities begin!”

The four of them stare at Gabe coming up the steps, then Spencer says, “Still no.”

Brendon thinks he may be able to hear Nate’s sanity leaving his body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New year, new...nope. Nothing. I got nothing. Sporadic upload schedule for this story stays, sorry.
> 
> I also have stories of crossdressing adult males for no discernible reason, both the music coordinator and Cub Scout day camp thing. It was great.
> 
> Ryan's talk was written with a very basic knowledge of real Ryan Ross's family history--I know his mother left, and I know his father was an alcoholic. Everything else was made up to fit the narrative.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Faith and Jesus Christ

“So did you have to do that, too?” Brendon asks Spencer, watching the maitre d’s dressed in 80’s aerobics gear doing squats, while a grown man doing a scary-good Richard Simmons impression leads them. It’s too early for Brendon to be doing squats, so he’s half-assing them to the extreme, but the idea of Spencer doing squats in bright colored tights and leg warmers is too amusing to let go.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Spencer mumbles darkly.

Ryan laughs loudly. “He borrowed some of his _mom’s_ stuff, Brendon, it was _awesome_!”

“You’re a terrible friend, Ryan Ross.”

“I am the _best_ friend, Spencer Smith.”

“I’ll bet you looked good in your mom’s jazzercise clothes, Spencer,” Brendon says with a grin. He may not be wild about this weekend, and he may not be wild about Ryan, but Spencer’s a good enough person that Brendon wouldn’t mind being his friend—they are neighbors, after all.

(Never mind the fact that being Spencer’s friend would pretty much force him to also be Ryan’s friend.)

“Pete looked better,” interjects the boy on Spencer’s other side. Brendon’s quite impressed by his hair, dark and curly and wild.

“Nobody asked you, Trohman,” Spencer snaps.

“Spencer hates being reminded of all the things he had to do his first Happening on Team,” Ryan stage whispers, “but even more than that, he hates being reminded that Pete looked better than he did in everything.”

Brendon seeks Pete out in the room, across the room and doing his squats with gusto, sticking his ass out more than he strictly needs to. Brendon doesn’t say it, but he doesn’t see how Pete looked better than Spencer in anything—Spencer’s more attractive by a long shot.

“Not _everything_ ,” Spencer mumbles petulantly. “I looked better on Saturday night.”

Ryan and the other boy both nod. “Point,” the other boy allows.

“Oh wow, the one _normal_ costume,” Ryan says. The maitre d’s stop doing their squats and join the circle, then one of the adults steps into the circle, along with a girl holding a guitar. The adult directs their attention to the posters on the walls, with the words to their blessing printed on them, saying that they’ll pick up the melody quickly. The girl starts playing, and everybody’s singing with hands linked again. Brendon’s kind of just mumbling his way through and not paying attention until suddenly Ryan and Nate, on Brendon’s other side, both jump up, almost causing Brendon to fall.

The prayer ends and everybody scatters, looking at something on the tables as they mill around. Brendon looks down at the table nearest him and finds that there are names on the placemats. Great. Assigned seats.

He finds his fairly quickly, but briefly considers switching his place for some other table. On his right side is Pete’s name, on his left is Gabe’s.

“Just sit down and get it over with,” the boy already seated at the table says, staring at the tiny glass that was in front of his seat. Brendon swears the dinner glasses were bigger.

Brendon sits, but stares warily at Pete’s placemat for a while before he flips his own glass. “This glass is tiny,” he states.

The other kid nods. Brendon realizes it was the same person that was talking to him, Ryan, and Spencer right before they sat down. His name tag reads _Joe_. “It is indeed.”

Gabe and Pete show up, both nursing cups of coffee. Pete has a handful of colored creamer cups, which he puts down on his plate. Brendon stares.

“I need a gopher,” Pete says suddenly.

Gabe grins. “I have a gopher,” he says. Suddenly, he’s standing again, walking away to where Brendon can see Nate still searching for his seat. There’s a moment where Gabe says something, Nate rolls his eyes, and then Gabe’s reaching into his pocket and transferring its contents into Nate’s pouch. Gabe comes back and sits back down. “And I have utilized my gopher.”

“You just gave Nate Novarro twenty-something hazelnut coffee creamers,” Joe points out.

A boy with cotton-candy pink hair sits down then, looking at Gabe staring at Joe blankly. “What did I miss?”

“Gabe just gave Nate a handful of hazelnut creamer to hold for him,” Pete explains, grinning for some unknown reason. He reaches out and grabs the platter of eggs, which Brendon does not like the look of. There are also biscuits, one of which Brendon takes, and bacon, which Brendon doesn’t touch.

The newcomer—the other Josh, according to his name tag—laughs. “Aw, man, that was a seriously bad move.”

“Okay, why’s Novarro singing?” demands Ash, sitting down and brushing her hair out of her eyes.

“Gabe gave him the hazelnut coffee creamer,” Josh fills her in. Brendon’s not entirely sure of the significance of this—if Pete and Gabe could grab it for themselves, then why couldn’t Nate have grabbed it himself?

Gabe stands. “You know what? I don’t need this.” He glances down at Brendon. “Frank said last night you’re vegetarian?”

Brendon stares up at him. “Yeah?”

“There’s cereal, fruit, and fake bacon up there. Want me to grab you anything?”

Brendon’s about to say he just wants an orange and maybe some of that fake bacon, but then somebody sits down with a bowl of Lucky Charms and a glass of chocolate milk.

“Lucky Charms,” he says immediately.

“Are you vegan, too, or do you just want the normal milk?” Brendon’s thankful that for as… _eccentric_ as Gabe is, he’s being normal enough to make sure Brendon eats what he can eat and wants to eat.

“Chocolate milk?” he requests. “And dairy’s fine.”

Gabe grins. “You have excellent taste,” he declares, heading for the front of the dining hall.

“So why is it so funny that Gabe gave…” Brendon trails off, seeing Pete’s plate—now full of empty creamer cups. “Did you put all that in your coffee?”

Pete looks over at him, raising his coffee mug to his mouth. “Mm-hmm.” He takes a sip and puts the cup back down. “Should have asked Gabe to get me an empty bowl,” he says thoughtfully. “Who wants a big kid glass?”

Everybody present raises a hand. Lauren comes up, sitting down on Pete’s other side, raising her own hand. “Why are we raising hands?” she asks Brendon, as Pete walks away.

“Big kid glasses,” Brendon answers.

Lauren looks down at the tiny cup. “Oh, wow. Glad I raised my hand.”

“By the way,” Joe starts, helping himself to some bacon, “Nate practically has a sordid love affair with hazelnut creamer, so Gabe basically just grabbed a huge handful of it for no reason.”

“Can’t he just get some more, and not give it to Nate?” Brendon asks.

Ash snorts. “Gabe’s not carrying around a bunch of creamer in his pockets, that’s what Nate’s pouch is for.”

Gabe comes back then, setting down Brendon’s cereal in front of him. “Forgot to ask, but I went ahead and got you a glass of chocolate milk too, because I’m the best.”

Brendon shrugs, taking a sip of the milk. It’s richer than any chocolate milk he’s had before, but he’s not going to complain. It’s fucking _amazing._

“I return with big kid cups,” Pete announces suddenly. He passes them around to everybody, then sets his own down in front of him. It’s full of creamers.

“Do you have enough cream, there, Wentz?” Ash asks, eyeing Pete’s cream cup with disdain.

Pete shrugs. “Until lunch, yeah.”

“So what’s everybody’s favorite thing about Happening so far?” Gabe asks. Brendon notices that he’s got a bowl with an apple, an orange, and a banana. He’s starting to peel the orange, so Brendon thinks maybe he’s making a fruit salad.

“I liked the games last night,” Lauren answers, taking a bite of her eggs. She looks down at them and makes a face.

“Pepper helps,” Pete suggests, handing her the shaker. “And my answer is totally the fact that I’m in Lagoon this weekend.”

“Lagoon?” asks the only boy that hasn’t introduced himself yet. His name tag reads _Lou_.

“Lagoon housing,” Gabe explains. “More like hotel rooms than cabins.”

“The towels are so fluffy,” Pete sighs, piling eggs onto his biscuit. “And they hold two people, not ten.”

Gabe narrows his eyes. “No navy blue, Wentz,” he reminds Pete.

Pete clutches his chest with a gasp. “I would _never_ ,” he says, sounding affronted. “How dare you even _suggest_ such a thing?”

“He’s right,” Joe agrees, waving a fork in Pete’s direction. “Patrick would never let him.”

Brendon stares at Pete, then Joe, then Gabe, trying to figure out why they’d _joke_ about something like this.

“My favorite thing about Happening,” Josh interrupts too loudly, “is that I can push all of you off the boat dock if this conversation doesn’t end _right now_.” Pete, Gabe, and Joe all shut up, and Brendon thinks he may owe his life to Josh now.

“I’ve met some cool people already,” Lou offers. “That’s probably my favorite thing.”

“The best thing about Happening,” Joe starts off grandly, arms in the air, and Brendon thinks he may be getting ready to say that the best thing is something having to do with _friendship_ or _Jesus_ with as grandiose as he’s being, “is easily the free food.”

Brendon kind of wants to point out that so far, _free food_ is mystery meat that he can’t eat, bacon that wouldn’t look appetizing even if Brendon _weren’t_ vegetarian, and eggs that just don’t look all that appetizing. He’s not impressed with the food, is the point, and even with as much as he doesn’t like Happening, he definitely wouldn’t go so far as to say that the best thing was the food.

“My favorite thing so far was definitely seeing Pete dressed Katy Perry,” Ash says with finality. Brendon would definitely not say that was his favorite part—that was more mentally scarring than amusing.

“What about you, Brendon?” Josh asks, sounding like he genuinely wants to know what Brendon’s favorite thing about the weekend has been.

Brendon shifts uncomfortably, now that the whole table’s focus is on him. _Ryan’s talk_ comes to mind, immediately followed by _getting to know Ryan better_ , but he can’t say either of those things. But the only other things he’s seen so far has been a bunch of teenagers trying too hard to make a church camp seem like anything less than Christian Reform Central.

“The gophers handing out free candy to anybody who asks is pretty cool, I guess,” he mumbles finally, for lack of anything else to say.

“I was a gopher exactly once,” Pete says reminiscently.

“What happened?” Lauren asks.

“I ate all the candy and the Observing Head Gopher told me that I was banned from the Gopher Hole for the next Happening.”

“That didn’t stop you from trying, as I recall,” Joe says.

“Pete’s permanently blacklisted from the Gopher Hole,” Gabe adds. “I was in there talking to Vicky-T, there’s a huge sign that says ‘Pete Wentz is not allowed in under any circumstance.’”

“And Gabe was blacklisted until Friday morning,” Ash adds. “And even now he’s only allowed in if he’s talking to Victoria and only for five minutes at a time.”

“Vicky-T loves me,” Gabe confides in Brendon, “she’s just being stubborn about admitting that she’s fallen for my exotic charm.”

Brendon agrees that Gabe’s exotic, but definitely not because he’s from South America.

“So what’s your favorite thing about the weekend so far, Gabe?” Josh asks, sounding for all the world like he’s setting up for a joke.

Gabe slams his hands on the table. “I am glad you asked, Josh,” he says, even more grandeur in his voice than when Joe said _free food_. “My favorite thing about Happening is the power I’ve been granted where every single one of you has to listen to _me_.” He pauses. “I mean Jesus.”

Brendon has no idea what ‘Jesus’ is supposed to replace in that statement, but he does know that Gabe doesn’t actually mean the correction.

“Right,” Ash says after a moment. “I’m sure that’s exactly what you meant.”

* * *

 

Brendon hasn’t been prepared for pretty much anything that’s happened so far, but he certainly was not prepared for this morning’s Energizers. More specifically, for the sight of Josh Dun, the Josh he’d met at breakfast who Brendon had decided he owed his life to, in _metallic blue hot pants._ Those shorts _did not fit him_ in the slightest, and the sight of another guy in hot pink athletic shorts that were just as short if not as tight did not make the visual any better.

The movements (explained by Ash and Josh) seemed to be more complex than last night’s Africa, but everybody seemed much more excited about this one. The song started up, and Brendon vaguely recognized the style as dubstep, even though he didn’t know the artist or the song itself. He heard a bunch of people calling it “Bundem,” though, whatever that meant.

After they do the weird Bundem dance, they do another one to “I’m a Believer.” Brendon begins to maybe enjoy himself a tiny bit during the Energizers, but that may have something to do with the fact that Pete fell on his ass during Bundem and there was way more flailing than was strictly necessary, because Pete is a drama queen above all else.

After the Energizers, they sit, and there’s a skit about two girl getting ready for dates, but their arms are actually somebody else’s arms, and Brendon’s pretty sure he recognizes Pete’s arms doing the makeup for the girl on the left. It’s a very short skit, and not one that Brendon finds particularly funny, but the clownish makeup is kind of amusing, in its own way. Pete (he comes out from behind the curtain at the end of the skit) at least put all the makeup where on the face it’s supposed to go (Brendon thinks) but the boy on the right missed pretty much everything.

There’s a couple songs, then Gabe stands up at the podium. “Kicking off the talks for today, we have Pete Wentz with the Faith Talk.”

Pete gets up and walks through the crowd of teenagers sitting on the floor, brushing his leg right up against Brendon’s shoulder, even though Brendon leans as far out of his way as he can manage. When he gets up to the podium, he looks down at the papers he places on it and takes a few deep breaths. Unlike Ryan and Tyler, who started almost immediately, Pete almost takes a whole ten seconds to start.

“Anybody who’s ever sat through even ten seconds of a worship service for any denomination, or read just about any excerpt from any holy book, anybody with any kind of religious experience whatsoever, you’ve probably encountered the word ‘faith.’ Like Ryan’s topic last night, this topic is a single word, with a very basic dictionary definition, but this massive connotation that a whole lot of people seem to struggle with. As I’m sure your resident priest-slash-holy person of choice has told you, faith is really just believing in what we can’t see. Believing in something without any evidence. For example: I have faith the Cubs will make the World Series this year.”

There’s a mixed reaction to that—some people cheer, some boo, and some just look like they don’t care about sports (a category into which Brendon sorts himself).

“For those of you who don’t follow baseball, having faith the Cubs will make it to the World Series is like having faith the Redskins will make it to the Superbowl. And if you don’t follow football, then just know that every year is a bad year to be a Redskins fan. Basically, the Cubs aren’t doing so hot this season, so there’s no real reason to believe that they’ll make it anywhere. But they’re my team, so I’m going to have faith that they can go far.” Pete makes a face that kind of says _but they almost certainly won’t_.

“Okay, enough of the sports analogy,” he continues, waving a hand. “Didn’t actually make sense, I just didn’t want to start off with the…” He takes a deep breath. “You know what, I’m starting over.

“Anybody who’s ever sat through even ten seconds of…This talk’s about faith. Faith as a word, faith as a concept, and faith as something that can and sometimes will save your life. ‘Whoa, Pete, that sounds dramatic and morbid and I came out to have a good time and honestly I’m feeling so attacked right now.’ Last night, Ryan told us that there’s a spiritual reality wherein God is an ever-constant presence, always steady by our sides. But the problem is, we can’t just _leave_ it there. It’s all to easy for skeptics to stare at Ryan after his talk, after he unloaded his incredibly personal story onto all of us, and say ‘but that wasn’t God, that was Spencer and his family.”

Brendon shifts uncomfortably. There was a part of him that thought that last night.

“And that’s where faith comes in. See, like I said earlier, faith is believing in what we cannot prove. Can’t see, can’t touch, can’t hear. Can’t tell it’s there. We’ve been _told_ that God is always by our sides, but we don’t get the luxury of saying ‘seeing is believing’ here. If seeing is believing, then the religious population has decreased significantly. Practically decimated.

“Did you know that I used to be one of those people? One of those ‘God isn’t real and if you believe in Him you’re an idiot’ people? Because I was. I wasn’t really raised religiously—mine was one of those families where we went to church on Christmas and on Easter. This is actually only my third Happening. My first was my sophomore year of high school, about two weeks after…after I got out of the hospital from a failed suicide attempt.”

There’s an immediate effect of a sudden silence descending upon the Talk Room, like everybody is holding their breaths as one—Brendon, for sure, isn’t breathing anymore.

“Didn’t know about that one, did you? I didn’t believe in God, not really, and I think part of that was just me? I’m bipolar, and I didn’t see how people could have this blind faith in a God who makes us broken like that. Because I was. Broken, I mean. I had a therapist, I had pills that I took to make me better except they didn’t work at all, not even a little bit.

“It was about two in the morning. I’d just gotten my license, and I just wanted to go for a drive. And then I was in a parking lot at a Best Buy, and I had my pills with me. I don’t know why they were in the car, but they were. And I just…I didn’t want to keep going. I was just tired.

“I was sitting in the driver’s side of a car in a dark parking lot with a bottle of pills and no will to live, the answer seemed obvious.

“I regretted it, almost immediately. I called _my_ best friend—because best friends are the best person to call in these situations—and I fell asleep on the phone with him. I woke up in the hospital, and that ‘Hallelujah’ song was playing. You know, the one that goes, _hallelujah, hallelujah…_ ”

Pete tries to sing the song, but he sounds like a dying beached whale crossbred with a cat in heat.

“And in my still drugged-out, half dead state, it sounded less like the Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ and more like a realization that, yes, hello, religious people and nutcases are not synonymous. And my best friend—who’s totally Patrick, by the way, callout—couldn’t decide if he should just skip church the Sunday after I was discharged. I mean, God would understand, I’m sure. And I was like, ‘why don’t I go with you instead?’ And he gave me that look he always gives me, that ‘ _Pete are you crazy?_ ’ look that I actually thought was his resting face for a solid six months before he introduced me to a different friend. But anyway, I went to church with him.

“And blind faith isn’t actually blind. It’s a faith that’s actually founded—founded in the strength that it gives you. There was a parishioner at my church who recently passed away, and at his funeral, the priest said that one of the last times they spoke, he said, ‘I must keep hope, because with hope comes faith. With faith comes strength. Without hope, without faith, I am nothing.’ And, sure, the hope part of that seems completely out of the blue here, but the faith part.

“You have to take that leap. Leap of faith. But I promise you, having faith in a God you can’t actually see there will give you a kind of strength you could never imagine. Amen.”

Brendon is learning very quickly that nothing here is as he expects.

* * *

 

“I don’t follow country music,” Jack says, tapping his scissors on the bed he’s sitting on, “and so I have no idea who this is.”

Josh looks over Jack’s shoulder. “Oh, that’s Faith Hill.”

Jack gets a manic grin on his face. “Sweet.” He takes his scissors and starts cutting—presumably he’s cutting out Faith Hill’s face to stick on the small group’s ‘Faith Collage.’

“Yay, puns,” Dallon mumbles, beside Brendon. Alex, meanwhile, is looking through his own magazine, trying to find his own person called ‘Faith.’

“Harley Davidsons are supposed to be faithful, right?” Melanie asks, taking Brendon’s attention from whatever’s going on with Jack and Alex now. (“I’ll be faithful forever, bro.”

“ _Bro._ ”)

“’S what I’ve heard,” Hayley confirms. Brendon doesn’t actually know. His parents don’t like motorcycles.

He goes back to flipping half-heartedly through his own magazine, and suddenly there’s a dog staring up at him from the glossy pages. “Golden Retrievers are really faithful dogs, right?” he asks the group.

“More loyal,” Dallon corrects absently. “But we can go with faithful in their loyalness.”

“I’ll take it,” Brendon declares, grabbing a pair of scissors and cutting out the picture of the dog.

“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘loyalty,’” Spencer corrects Dallon from the doorway. He’d brought them a basket with glue sticks, scissors, markers, and magazines, and also a posterboard, which was apparently for a collage of things having to do with faith. He’d then asked everyone if they wanted anything to drink and then disappeared again. He’d been back about five minutes, but hadn’t sat down to help with the collage. He’d also missed the riveting discussion they’d had about Pete’s talk.

“Why aren’t you cutting out faith things?” Jack asked, looking up at Spencer.

Spencer shrugged. “Do you want my help?”

Brendon looks down at their poster. It’s not really a collage, because Brendon was taught that a collage has no blank spaces, and theirs has a lot. But given the materials they were provided, he thinks they’re doing pretty well. Still, he’s not going to make that decision for the whole group. He’s not that kind of asshole.

“Write the story about Ryan and his first high school English paper or sit down,” Hayley says with finality. Spencer lets out a quick laugh, but grabs a Sharpie.

“Oh, he’s going to kill me,” he says gleefully.

Brendon doesn’t read over Spencer’s shoulder, he _doesn’t._

* * *

 

In the end, their poster isn’t the most elaborate, but it’s not the plainest, either. Spencer’s story written on there helped.

(Ryan looked angry for about three seconds before he started laughing with Spencer. Brendon laughed, too, but tried to cover it with a cough. The grin Spencer had shot his way tells him he kind of failed.)

“And this is a story that Spencer wrote for us,” Hayley adds, finishing up their presentation to everybody. “About how Ryan once had faith that the movie version was exactly like the book, because he was busy reading something else. And he was completely wrong and he failed that assignment.”

“We put it there because Faith in God may give us strength, but it is also possible to misplace faith, and that usually screws you over,” Josh explains. There’s a collective laugh, even Brendon finds himself smiling, and they hand the poster over to one of the adults before taking their seats.

Brendon finds himself next to William again, and William nudges him with his arm. He doesn’t say anything, but he smiles. Brendon smiles back before he can think about it. He tries to ignore the way William’s grin widens.

* * *

 

When Gabe introduces Jenna for the Jesus Christ talk, Brendon’s ready to admit that he has no idea what to expect.

“Alright, so we’re all here because we love Jesus,” Jenna starts off. “Unless you’re being held captive here against your will, in which case, I’m sorry.” Brendon feels like he’s being targeted, here. “You’re going to be here next time because by tomorrow afternoon you _will_ love Jesus, I promise.

“Small disclaimer: I cannot actually keep that promise, but I really hope that by tomorrow afternoon you do, in fact, love Jesus.

“I love Jesus. And so today, I stand up here, behind this podium, to tell you all _why_ I love Jesus. And it’s not because in all the movies about Jesus he’s a Swedish male model in a bathrobe and blowdried hair, mainly because he wasn’t that at all. He wasn’t even white, but that’s so far from the point and I need to get off that tangent while I’m ahead.

“To start with, anyone who tells you that Jesus isn’t real is _wrong._ It’s okay to have opinions and whatnot, but historically, Jesus of Nazareth existed. There was a guy, born to a carpenter, and his name was Jesus, and he was from Nazareth. He was a real dude. He just…made a lot of noise.

“I’ll spare you the parts of the story we beat to death every Christmas and Easter—Jesus was born of a virgin, he died for our sins, he came back three days later. Okay. We all know that. Even non-Christians know that part. But there are about thirty years that they _don’t_ talk about in Church. Thirty years of Jesus being a human, being a kid that wandered off in a temple and scared his parents, being a human who mourned the loss of a dear friend, who became angry at the money changers in his father’s house, who was _scared_ the night before he was meant to die.

“It always seems like the Church only ever talks about the Son of God and his teachings of love and acceptance. _Or_ they ignore the teachings of love and acceptance part, instead talking about his…I really don’t know enough about their sermons to be able to tell you what all those other churches are saying about Jesus, but his divinity is almost definitely the focus somehow. And that _sucks_ , because there’s this whole other side to Christ that Christians have left unmentioned for two thousand years.”

Brendon’s church teaches love and acceptance; he’s here because his parents are trying to save him, he _knows_ that. Jenna said it herself, she doesn’t know.

“My priest has a picture of Jesus in his office—what priest doesn’t?—and he always says it’s his favorite picture of Jesus that he has. To be honest, it’s definitely on the list of my favorites. Because it’s not a picture of Jesus on the cross, it’s not a picture of Jesus in front of a crowd, it’s not a picture of a miracle. It’s not an _icon_ , it’s a picture. A close up of Jesus, and he’s just laughing. He’s happy. My priest always goes on to say that there are people, one in particular, though he never points fingers, who hate this picture. They say that it’s wrong, improper, _inappropriate_. What? Jesus, _laughing_? What kind of nonsense is that?

“What kind of nonsense is it to suggest that Jesus never felt any emotions? One of the most iconic miracles is the resurrection of Lazarus, and the only reason that he did it was because Lazarus was a good friend—a brother, even—and Jesus was _distraught_ at his death. It states in the Bible, every gospel that covers Gethsemane, that Jesus did _not_ want to die that night. He asked his Father for an alternative and, when he didn’t get one, gave the equivalent of the ‘fine, I’ll _do_ it, but only ‘cause I _have_ to’ speech.”

Brendon hadn’t known that part. He needs a Bible—he’d like to fact check this shit before he believes anything else this weekend.

“The point to all this isn’t just that Jesus is a son of man as well as Son of God—I mean, that is the point, but there’s another point, too. Otherwise, why bring it up?

“Another teaching of the Church is that Christ is always by your side. And I won’t stand here and nitpick that, because that part is true. The _problem_ is, that sometimes the Church implies that accepting that leads to…

“Nothing. Strength. _Unending_ strength. There’s this sense that once you’ve accepted Christ into your heart, that’s it. You’ll never be upset, scared, or lost again. All negative emotions will be abolished and you’ll always feel loved and accepted. And _that_ sense leads to people thinking that the only reason that they’re hurt, or scared, or feel _alone_ , is because they…what? They don’t love Christ enough?

“There’s a famous parable-type…thing that would beg to differ. Footsteps. If you know nothing else about me, you’ll know that I absolutely _love_ this footsteps in the sand story. There’s a man who has a dream one night. In the dream, he meets Jesus. It’s cool, they talk. After a while, scenes from this man’s life are playing, projected in the sky. Accompanying each scene are two sets of footprints, presumably the man’s and Jesus’s. Except in some scenes, where there’s only one set. The man turns to Jesus suddenly, noticing something strange. ‘Lord,’ the man says, ‘why is it that in the hardest moments of my life, there is only one set of footprints? Why, when I needed you most, did you abandon me?’ And Jesus replied, ‘My child, look again. The times you only see one set of footprints are the times you found yourself too weak to carry on, and so I carried you.’

“Too long didn’t read, Jesus was human, it’s okay to feel things, Jesus will always be there to carry you along. And remember: whenever somebody asks you the famous question, ‘What would Jesus do,’ angry yelling and flipping tables is always a valid answer. Amen.”

Brendon waits, expecting Gabe to come back to the podium, tell them to go back into their small groups, talk about what Jenna said. But all that happens is a video plays on the projector.

Brendon doesn’t really know what’s going on; there’s a song playing about a shepherd telling his sons to watch a lamb. Then there’s something about shouting and booing, and Brendon figures out he’s watching a music video about Christ’s crucifixion. He hears another Candidate behind him mutter, _Simon_ about halfway through, but he doesn’t know who the hell Simon is or what he has to do with anything. At the end of the video, the man’s sons return, telling him that the lamb they were going to sacrifice had run away. _And we turned and faced the cross, then I said, “Dear children, watch the Lamb_.”

It was a take on the story all Christians knew well that Brendon had never heard. Jesus, hurt, beaten, and in pain. Jesus, too weak to carry his own cross. Jesus, _human._

Gabe stands when the video ends, but only to announce a skit. Behind him, Pete and another guy are placing two chairs right next to each other. A girl with dark hair comes up and lies down on the chairs, like a bed. Pete and the other guy disappear.

“Breezy,” says another girl, coming up the aisle and pretending to shake ‘Breezy’ awake. “Breezy, come on. Time to wake up.”

Breezy mumbles something, probably a ‘no.’

“Come on, hon. Long day.”

Breezy sits up, doing a good job of acting like she just woke up.

“Don’t forget to say your prayers.” The girl pretending to be Breezy’s mother walks back to the back of the room. Breezy gets on her knees by the ‘bed’ and folds her hands, taking on the universal praying stance.

Pete comes up, brown marker on his face in some semblance of a beard, and a sheet of paper reading ‘JESUS’ taped to his chest. Brendon’s parents would be _furious_ at the sight.

Breezy starts babbling, clearly excited to see Jesus Christ in her bedroom. “So, what do you want to do?” she asks. Pete shrugs. “Okay, um, well, do you want to watch TV? I think the Kardashians might be on.” Pete shakes his head. “Oh. Well, how about…Oh! We can look at magazines. There’s an article on the Bradgelina split!” Pete hesitates, then shakes his head again. Breezy looks around, clearly at a loss.

“Ring, ring!”

Breezy pretends to answer a phone. “Hello?”

“Breeze, hey.” Brendon (along with everybody else) turns to look at the back of the room. There’s a guy standing there, looking kind of like he’s high (sounding it, too). “There’s a huge party at Trohman’s tonight. See you there?”

“Um,” Breezy hesitates. She pulls her hand-phone away from her ear. “One of my friends is having a party tonight,” she tells Pete-Jesus. Pete shakes his head at her. Breezy stares at him a moment, then puts the phone back to her ear. “I’ll get back to you,” she says.

“Cool.”

Pete’s looking at Breezy disapprovingly. “Alright, you don’t want to watch TV, don’t want to look at magazines, don’t want to go to Joe’s party. What _do_ you want to do?” Pete shrugs again. “Then why can’t we do anything I want to do?” Pete shrugs again.

There’s a lot of shouting, then, and a group of people with plastic cups all labelled ‘ALCOHOL’ come up to the front, whooping and hollering. “Hey, Breezy!” the guy from before says, coming to the front of the group. “So, you coming or what?”

Breezy looks between the group and Pete-Jesus a few times. She turns to Pete and pulls him closer to the corner for the band. “Jesus, I’m going to the party, okay. Just…I don’t know, stay here, okay?” At Pete’s stare, she continues. “ _Okay_? Just _stay. Here._ ” She puts Pete’s arms out to either side of him, and Brendon doesn’t miss the imagery. Pete’s arms are outspread, like…

Like he’s on a cross.

Breezy and the rest of the group leave the building, but Pete stays. The band makes their way over to their instruments and picks them up, but Pete stays. They start to play, they play a nearly _five minute_ song.

But Pete stays.

_How beautiful is the body of Christ._

Only when the final cords fade away, the singers step away from their mics, only then does Pete slowly lower his arms and walk out of the room. There’s a careful quiet surrounding the Talk Room now, as if speaking could shatter the peaceful atmosphere.

Gabe stands up, then. “Lunchtime,” he announces, and everybody stands up and makes their way out to the dining hall.

Brendon can’t get the image of Pete, standing their with arms outstretched and head bowed, out of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To see the video/hear the song after Jenna's talk, search "Watch the Lamb" and "How Beautiful" on YouTube.
> 
> Important note: this was written before the 2016 World Series. I was too lazy to change it. Please, nobody comment on it. I know. I know very well. Just ask geektopia.
> 
> Something else I need to say is that, at actual Happening, these talks have Bible verses that back up what people are saying. Since most of this was written in a Taco Bell after I got out of work, and Taco Bell does not provide Bibles for whoever asks, I did not have one handy while writing these.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reconciliation and Church and Grace

“I thought it was really cool that they told the story of the walk to Golgotha from Simon’s point of view,” Dallon says, after lunch when they’re back in the small group meeting space.

Hayley nods. “Simon isn’t really talked about that often,” she agrees. “But it’s definitely something that caught me off guard, too.”

“I didn’t realize how many people were just there, that day,” Melanie adds. “I always thought all of them were there to see Christ crucified.”

“Mob mentality,” Jack offers. “It’s why Pontias Pilate agreed at all. He knew Jesus wasn’t guilty of any crimes worthy of death. He even tried to remind them that it was a day to release one prisoner.”

“Yeah, then they freed a serial killer and killed the heretic,” Josh says.

Brendon doesn’t know any of this.

“And how about the skit?” Hayley asks, after a moment of silence. “What did everyone think of that?”

“I thought it was sad,” Brendon says, before he can convince himself not to say a word. “Pete just wanted what was best for Breezy, and she left him there. And even then, he stayed there. He waited for her to come back.”

“It’s weird to see it,” Dallon adds. “They tell you all the time, that Jesus waits for you. But it’s so hard to comprehend it yourself.”

“He always waits for you,” Hayley confirms. “No matter what you leave Him for, no matter where you go, no matter how long you’re gone. He waits for you to come back.”

“What if…” Brendon pauses. “What if you aren’t sure you want to go back?” It’s the first time he’s let himself admit that he’s not sure he’s Christian anymore; he’s definitely coming to terms with the fact he wants to leave the Church of Latter Day Saints.

“He waits until you are sure,” Josh says. “And some people even say He’ll accept whatever decision you make. That it’s okay to decide not to come back at all, as long as you know for yourself, and you’re comfortable with it.”

That makes Brendon pause, but not because Josh said it doesn’t matter. “What do you mean, ‘some people’?”

“That’s a question for Mark, I think,” Hayley says softly. “We aren’t priests, and Mark explains it really well, anyway. But just know that the Episcopal Church is very…flexible about their belief system.”

Everyone is quiet for a moment, before Alex breaks the silence and changes the subject, saying, “Did holding his arms out like that make Pete’s arms hurt?”

“I sat with him at lunch,” Melanie supplied. “He said it hurt so bad for the first couple verses, but by the one about the radiant bride his arms were just numb.”

“I was Jesus last year,” Hayley says. Brendon stares. “It was awful.”

“The real question is how much it hurt for Pete to keep his mouth shut the whole time,” Josh jokes. The mood lightens, but Brendon isn’t sure that he can feel it.

* * *

The Energizers this time are to the songs 500 Miles and Numa Numa, and Brendon still can’t see the appeal to them. Pete doesn’t fall this time, but at least Josh is wearing pants now. Brendon’s traumatized enough from this morning.

The singing session that follows contains a couple songs with so many hand motions that Brendon gets confused, and then there’s a song in Spanish. Gabe looks to be in his element, which Brendon can understand, but most everybody else looks just as excited as Gabe. Even David, Brendon’s cabin mate, is excited. Brendon’s just even more confused. There are still hand motions and complicated clapping patterns, the song’s just in a different language. There’s one last song, and people start to wrap arms around each other’s shoulders, leading to a chain of swaying teenagers, all smiling and singing. Brendon hadn’t realized it as it happened, but suddenly he’s sandwiched between Ryan and Frank, half-hugging both of them as they sing about God always being by their sides.

The strangest thing is that Brendon doesn’t mind.

Everyone sits afterwards, and Brendon waits for the next talk, but all that starts is a video. The title card reads ‘ _Lump_ ,’ and Brendon’s waiting for a punch line.

The man in the video starts off talking about a bowl filled with miscellaneous crap. Every household has one, whether it’s a drawer, or a box, or something else. Brendon thinks of the junk drawer in his dresser, the one where he keeps everything he doesn’t want to get rid of, but has no use for, or doesn’t know where else to put.

The man says something about a white ball suddenly appearing in the bowl one day, and when he and his wife asked the kids if they knew where it came from, the youngest said no, and the oldest spazzed out. “ _I don’t know where the white ball came from. It’s the strangest thing!_ ” and “ _It’s like he was possessed by the spirit of Urkel…It’s the strangest thing!_ ”

He changes the topic abruptly, the sons were playing, and the youngest ran to the mom and said that the older one had hit him. The older son spazzed out again—It’s the strangest thing!—and the mother brought up the white ball.

When the man speaking got home, he said that his son had been upstairs the whole day, under the covers in the master bedroom. He sat on the bed and told the boy, “ _Nothing you could ever do could ever make me love you any less._ ”

He relates it to God, then, saying that God’s the same way. God loves you in the same unconditional way as a parent. _Nothing you could ever do could ever make me love you any less._

Every single time the man in the video repeats the phrase, Brendon feels sick to his stomach and he feels tears burn behind his eyes. _Nothing you could ever do?_ But if God wouldn’t love Brendon any less for anything in the world, does that mean he never loved him at all?

Does that mean Brendon’s parents never loved him at all?

Or was being gay an exception, something that this man in the video never considered, because the idea was too repulsive to him?

The video ends, and a kind-faced man steps up to the front of the room. Brendon vaguely recognizes him as Mark Hoppus, the spiritual director. Gabe had introduced him at the beginning of the weekend. He pulls up a chair and sits down, looking at everyone and leaning back.

“Nothing. Nothing you could _ever_ do could _ever_ make me love you any less.” Brendon still feels sick. “Isn’t that crazy? That no matter what, God will always love you just as much as he did on the day you were born? The day you were _conceived_? No matter what you do wrong, God will always love you.

“When someone says ‘reconciliation,’ what do you think of?” Mark asks. When nobody answers, he says, “This isn’t a talk, it’s a discussion. You can answer aloud.”

“Forgiveness,” someone says.

“Saying you're sorry,” says someone else.

There are a few more responses, but they pass in a blur for Brendon. He just doesn't understand why everyone is so _calmly discussing_ this, as if there isn’t an obvious exception to Mark’s ‘nothing you could ever do’ spiel that’s been blaring in Brendon’s mind since that stupid video ended.

But Mark keeps talking, and never, not once, does he mention homosexuality. He doesn’t mention it as an exception to endless forgiveness, and he doesn’t mention that God doesn’t love people like Brendon. Brendon kind of wants to go to the bathroom and skip the discussion, but as soon as he decides that, Mark stands up and returns his chair to where he grabbed it from.

Gabe stands up at the front again. “And now we have Ash Frangipane for the Church and Grace talk.”

Ash stands up and moves to stand behind the podium, but Brendon’s still lost in his own head.

“Nothing you could ever do,” she says, and Brendon’s ready to get up and just leave. “Does that mean I could kill a man?” Brendon settles back down. It sounds like Ash agrees with him. “What does that prayer even _sound_ like? ‘God, I’m sorry that I just stabbed this guy thirty-seven times in the chest. I didn’t know that it would kill him!’”

“Caaaaaaarrrrrl,” Pete says, “that kills people!” Everybody starts laughing, including Ryan and Frank on either of Brendon’s sides, and Brendon feels like he’s missed out on an important joke.

“Thanks, Pete,” Ash says. “I asked him to do that. He’s a good sport. Anyway, the point is, the church preaches forgiveness in the face of any sin. And that leads a lot of people to ask: how far can I push my luck here? _Could_ I kill a human being? Could I rob a bank? I mean, the answers we’re being given is _yes_ , but only if you’re _really_ sorry afterwards. When you’re asking God to forgive you, you have to be genuinely sorry about what you did. Could I cheat on my boyfriend? Could I cheat on a test? Could I lie to my parents about what I was doing last night? _Yes_! Because after I do all these things, I feel terrible, and I feel like I’ve made a terrible mistake, and so everything is okay, for some reason.

“But you know what I couldn’t do, when I was fourteen and a good little Baptist girl? I could not kiss a girl.”

Brendon’s whole world, just like that, tilted.

“I was fourteen. I was a freshman in high school, and the girl that sat next to me in my history class was the most beautiful human being I’d ever seen. And I knew, I _knew_ , that this was wrong. My preacher had been saying it for as long as I could remember, having sexual desires for the same sex was a _sin_. But _guys_. I had _so many_ desires for this girl, I mean, _oh my gosh_. It was Homecoming, and I kissed her under the bleachers. It was my first _real_ kiss. And I felt terrible, I did. I was scared, I was terrified. This was a sin, the worst sin, if my preacher’s adamancy against it was anything to go by.

“So I held my tongue. For an entire month, I held my tongue. My parents didn’t find out, my church didn’t find out, _nobody_ found out. And my girlfriend—because we started going out, of course we did, she was _amazing_ and I looked at her like she’d hung the stars—was okay with it because I was young and scared and in the closet. But I, I was not okay with it. I was a sinner, and not just because I was in love with another female, but because I was lying. I was disrespecting my parents, I was sneaking out and I was breaking all of these other rules and doing so many of the things that God asks us not to do and is this why? Is this why I can’t be in love with a woman? Why homosexuality is a sin? Because it leads to this? This…downward spiral where I was doing so many things wrong, things I _knew_ were wrong, and for what? For a girl?

“And after a month, I felt so bad, I confessed. Baptist confession isn’t like Catholic confession, where you meet in a confessional booth and you list your sins and then your priest tells you to say the rosary six times and you give the church twenty dollars and God forgives you. You meet with your preacher, tell him what you’ve done, and you pray together. I told him about how I lied, about how I disobeyed my parents and snuck out late at night. How I went out and I partied and all the things I’ve done that were making me feel terrible. I laid out every sin on the metaphorical table—except one. I refused to say sorry for falling in love.

“When I was asked if there was any reason, if there was anything that had started this, then, and only then, I told him about my girlfriend. He asked me if that was a part of my confession, and I didn’t hesitate before saying, ‘No. I am sorry that I lied, and I’m sorry that I’ve been sneaking around my parents, but I am not sorry that I’m dating a girl.’

“I thought he was reacting well. We prayed. Prayed for my soul, that I find my way back. Then he spoke with my parents. I hadn’t come out to them yet. Now, now I was terrified for all new reasons. There are people in my school who have been kicked out by their parents for being gay, what’s going to happen to me? Am I going to be sent to some farm out in the Midwest? An Amish community? Guys, I need my phone, I can’t be sent to Amish country, I’ll _die_!

“My parents came out of the office, we got in the car, and we went home. Nobody said anything. We got home, and I just sat on the couch. Where I always sit when I’m getting lectured. My parents still didn’t say anything. My dad sat in his chair, pulled out a book. I must have sat there for half an hour before I finally said, ‘I’m sorry.’

“‘Sorry for what?’ my mom asked. Sorry for what? Where do I even _begin_? ‘I’ve been sneaking out,’ I said. ‘I’ve been partying. I haven’t been doing my homework and I’ve been making excuses to my teachers.’ They didn’t say anything else, not for a few more minutes, and then my dad put down the book and my mom sat down next to me.

“She asked me if I knew why we were members at that church. And, admittedly, I didn’t. Turns out, it was because it was the first church my parents found that administered the Eucharist every week. But if they were going to request that I not attend any longer until my ‘soul was cleansed of homosexual desires,’ then we were going to find a new church.

“And that right there, that’s the Grace of God. Those people who will stand by you, no matter your sexuality, and they know that they will stand by you in Heaven, even if you don’t ‘go straight.’ Our God is a graceful God, and He will not punish you for loving someone, no matter what that person has in their pants. He only wants what is best for you, and what’s best for you isn’t always a member of the opposite sex. He loves you, and his love knows no boundaries. It knows no exception. It knows no end. And we can’t show that to you here at Happening, not exactly. But we can come close.”

People start coming in from the back, and Brendon doesn’t notice immediately, until Spencer’s standing over him, handing him a paper bag with his name written on it. And when Brendon looks back up at the podium, Ash isn’t up there anymore.

He looks over to where Ryan had been, but Ryan’s gone too. He spots him, walking around and handing out bags to some of the team members. Brendon still wants to cry.

Instead, he digs into his bag, since others around him are doing it, and he sees that it’s packed full of papers and a couple photos and…

“Candy,” he mutters.

“How much?” Frank asks. Brendon glances over; he doesn’t have a bag yet, and he’s respectfully not looking into Brendon’s.

“Uh…” Brendon looks in again. “Hard to say.”

Frank shrugs.

Brendon returns his attention to his bag, unsure of what he’s supposed to do. He expects Frank to give him a hint, but Frank doesn’t say anything at all. Very few people are saying anything, in fact. So Brendon pulls out one of the sheets of paper near the top.

It’s folded in half, his name written in purple ink. He unfolds it. _Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. Romans 15:7_ is handwritten at the top of the page. Taking up the rest of the paper is a drawing, boys and girls linked hand in hand, different colors and wearing different shirts and Brendon doesn’t know how much longer until he finally does cry when he sees that one of the shirts is a gay pride shirt. _We’re all human, after all. Unless you’re an alien robot monster. That’s cool, too. —Gerard Way_ is written at the bottom.

The next note is written on a blue paper, which Brendon thinks is cool. It has the story of the Good Samaritan written on it, except paraphrased into words that make Brendon laugh. It’s signed with Josh Dun’s name. There’s a baggie full of M&Ms next, and there’s a strip of paper inside with the same verse Gerard had written. The back of the strip of paper says _mercy and…macceptance? macceptance. m’acceptance. —Pete Wentz_. Brendon wants to be surprised, but honestly, he can’t say that he is. Pete is a very strange person.

The next note is written on notebook paper, the edge with all those annoying bits showing it was just torn straight out. Brendon unfolds it, and the name at the bottom catches his attention before he’s even read the rest of the note (though admittedly it’s more of a letter). _Ryan Ross._

In the time between convincing your parents to send you here and the Wednesday before Happening when I’m writing this, Spencer has informed me no less than 219 times that I was nosy, rude, and should have stayed out of your personal business. In the time between me convincing your parents to send you here and now (the aforementioned Wednesday), you’ve probably envisioned my gruesome death an equal or greater amount of times. But, I hope, in the time between now and when you get to read this, Saturday afternoon, you’ve changed your mind and stopped envisioning my death.

I also hope that you see now why I wanted you to be sent here, why I didn’t listen as Spencer told me to stay out of it, and why I am very, very happy to see you here. I don’t know what Ashley’s talk is going to be about exactly, but I do know that she’s giving the Church and Grace talk, the talk that my nosy self couldn’t help but think of as I heard your mother and father making a huge scene over something that shouldn’t have been taken so negatively.

I’m also sorry. I’m sorry that a boy you see around sometimes but have never spoken to in person came over to your house after an exceptionally personal and (I’m sure) devastating moment in your life and tried to fix it. I’m sorry that I don’t know you very well, that I haven’t had the courage to walk up to you and say ‘hi’ yet. I’m sorry that you’re going through what you’re going through, that you have to deal with coming to terms with yourself when your parents won’t do it themselves. I’m sorry that you’re coming to Happening so your entire view on the world and religion can be challenged.

But I am so very glad that you’re here. As I’m sure nobody here has hesitated to tell you, I have been looking forward to you being here for a while, now. I doubt I’ll be able to talk about much else, in the time leading up to Friday afternoon. And if I annoy everybody else enough, you’ll arrive to a litany of ‘OMG RYAN WON’T SHUT UP ABOUT YOU!!!!!!!’

The handwriting for the last sentence is different from the handwriting in the rest of the letter. Brendon recognizes it after a moment of staring—it’s Spencer’s.

_The point is, I am glad you’re here. I hope that you enjoy yourself, that your dread goes away quickly. I hope you realize that there is nothing wrong with you._

I hope we talk, that you and I walk out into what Gerard will call ‘the real world’ on Sunday afternoon as friends. Not strangers, not acquaintances.

But most importantly, I hope that you get the most out of this weekend. I hope you manage to prove Spencer wrong, this was totally a good idea.

The handwriting changes again, says _Spencer says he never claimed this was a bad idea, just that you need to mind your own business. This totally isn’t the way to make friends, by the way._

Brendon smiles, because he doesn’t know what else to do. Ryan’s writing sounds pretentious, but genuine. And he took the time to sit down and _write_ this whole thing, and…

_Holy fuck I don’t hate Ryan Ross._

The realization hits Brendon like a punch to the gut, and he puts the letter away quickly, with Gerard’s drawing and Pete’s M&Ms, then Brendon remembers chocolate and takes a handful and shoves it in his mouth. He grabs another paper blindly and opens it, hoping Frank doesn’t think he’s being weird.

The next note’s actually a picture—a photograph of two children, a little boy with dark skin and a little girl with light skin, playing with a Ninja Turtle ball. On the back, it reads, _Discrimination and bias aren’t inherent, they’re learned. “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. Romans 15:7_

Brendon’s starting to notice a theme.

The next thing he grabs is a jewel case, with a blank CD with his name at the top, Patrick Stump’s name and _Happening #69_ at the bottom. There isn’t any paper to tell him what songs are on the disc, but Brendon’s only a little apprehensive.

There’s more candy, Hershey’s kisses and mini Reese’s and more M&Ms and gummy bears and worms and there’s just a lot of candy, from Hayley and Ashley and Tyler, and Brendon thinks, not for the first time, that his parents really fucked up in listening to Ryan and agreeing to send him here. But, for the first time, Brendon is incredibly happy that they did.

Patrick wasn’t the only one to give out a mixed CD, either. Ryan gave one (Brendon doesn’t understand why he got two things, not just from Ryan, but also from a handful of others), and so did William. There are so many sheets of paper, some handwritten, some typed. They all, somewhere, have a bible verse somewhere on them, most of which are the same one from Romans. Occasionally, though, there are different ones. One from Joshua about strength, the excerpt from Corinthians defining love, and one bookmark that just says _JESUS WEPT_ (that one has Frank’s name on the back). That one seems to be more sad than what fits into the rest of the weekend, but Brendon has _music_ and _candy_ and for the first time in his life he’s thinking that maybe he won’t go to hell just because he wants to kiss boys instead of girls.

There are, though, notes that seem more like the note from Ryan, written just for him and not for the whole group. He isn’t sure about reading them in public like this, since Ryan’s almost made him finally cry and also come to a very startling realization, so he’ll save those all for later.

Finally emerging from his bag, Brendon looks around, and notices that the partition that had been separating the main section of the room from the back has been moved, and there’s a table of all kinds of sweets set up. He shoves everything back into the bag (except Ryan’s letter, which he tucks into the pocket of his hoodie) and makes his way back there. There are cookies and brownies and a cake and bowls full of candy. A cooler of sodas sits beside the table, while another table with juice and water sits on the other side. It takes a moment of debating, but Brendon reaches into the cooler of soda and pulls out a Coca-Cola. Gerard comes up behind him and grabs a diet something-or-other.

“Oh, hey,” Gerard says, noticing it’s Brendon beside him. “Ryan’s looking for you.” He points over to where a bar-counter sits in the corner, where Brendon sees Ryan talking to the bearded skit guy about something. While Brendon’s watching, the skit guy shoves a whole cookie in his mouth, making Ryan laugh and shove him lightly.

Brendon blinks and looks away, meaning to turn back to Gerard, but he’s already left and is talking to Frank and Mikey. If Brendon’s being honest, he was about to start looking for Ryan, too, but now that the other boy has been pointed out to him, Brendon’s afraid. A lot has changed in a very short time, he’s holding a can of caffeine, and he’s known for a while now that he’s gay but only in a hypothetical way, in the way that he’s seen men that he thought were attractive on the TV but never in person, never people that he’s known in real life, but he’s starting to realize he _likes Ryan Ross_ and now he just wants to hide away from him for the rest of the weekend.

(Ryan’s best friend being Brendon’s small group gopher might make that difficult, but Brendon is going to try.)

Finally reaching his breaking point, Brendon runs into the bathroom. It’s not empty, Max is leaning against the wall, hands shaking and tears running down his face. Brendon would apologize and back away, but he just sets his things on the counter and lets himself cry, too.

“You too, huh?” Max asks after a moment, voice thick.

Brendon nods, because his voice isn’t anywhere near ready to even attempt words right now.

“Yeah,” Max mutters. He sniffles. “I’m gonna go find…someone,” he says, gesturing vaguely at the door. “Unless you…”

Brendon shakes his head. “I’d like to be alone, if that’s okay.” Max nods, then leaves.

A moment later, the door opens slowly, and in comes the one person Brendon was actively trying to avoid, but he’s got a plate of junk food and a soft smile. “We have some free time before dinner,” Ryan says quietly. “Silent, reflective free time. If you’d like, I can show you somewhere really good for being alone.”

Brendon slowly picks up his bag and the soda, still unopened. Ryan hands him the plate, and Brendon gives him a watery smile in thanks.

They walk right out of the building, down the walkway and onto the main road. They keep going, and Brendon realizes he doesn’t actually know where anything is here. They pass his cabin, go straight down past the extent of where Brendon’s been before. He thinks he remembers someone saying something about not wandering off the campground, but there are other people filtering in the same direction and Ryan seems to know exactly where he’s going.

The silence is bit awkward for Brendon, because he feels like he should be saying _something_ to Ryan, but Ryan said silent, reflective free time. So Brendon’s being silently reflective (meaning he’s having an internal mental breakdown).

There’s a huge lake, then, right in front of them, with sailboats lined up along the edge and a dock leading out into the middle. Brendon thinks Ryan’s leading him onto the dock, but Ryan turns at the last minute, heading down a trail framed on either side by tall pine trees. Brendon follows, and he can almost feel the change in atmosphere.

“This leads to an outdoor sanctuary,” Ryan whispered. Brendon looks to his right, can see the lake between the trees. “But we are going this way,” Ryan adds, pointing to a smaller trail. They take it, and end up on a small outcropping, with a perfect view over the lake. There are some people on the dock, and some on the other side, but Brendon and Ryan are entirely alone where they are. Ryan takes off his shoes and socks and sits down on the edge, feet dangling but not quite touching the water. Brendon sits down beside him, but crosses his legs instead of dangling them over the edge.

“How did you find it here?” Brendon asks. He’s kind of hoping that the answer is, _we’re all going to be coming back here later_ because he likes the feeling he got as soon as they got onto the trail. Like all his worries were unimportant, like the whole world was at peace. He thinks maybe that’s how you’re meant to feel whenever you go to a church, but the feeling is entirely alien to Brendon.

“There’s a summer camp held on these grounds every year,” Ryan explained. “They hold their end-of-week Eucharist down at the sanctuary. Spencer showed me this little offset, here.” Now Brendon wants to know how Spencer found it, but he doesn’t ask. It doesn’t matter, ultimately. Brendon won’t be able to come back to this place for the rest of the weekend. He wants to soak it in while he can.

Suddenly, Brendon remembers he’s got a plate of sugary junk in his hand, so he takes a bite of one of the brownies. It’s the best thing he’s ever tasted, rich and fudgy and still soft despite the amount of time that must have passed between them being made and now.

“If you’re looking for someone to profess undying love to,” Ryan laughed, “it’s Spencer’s mom.”

“Why are the best ones always taken,” Brendon grumbled. “Can we pretend it was Spencer instead?”

Ryan snorted. “Spencer ‘helped,’ if that makes you feel better,” he offered, putting air-quotes around the word _helped_. “But only if by help you mean he gathered all the ingredients, greased the pan, and put the pan in the oven.”

“Did he take the pan _out_ of the oven?” That would mean he did the most important things. Brendon’s an expert on brownie making, he would know.

“No, that’s the point where I challenged him to Guitar Hero instead,” Ryan admitted.

Brendon shrugs. He’ll profess his undying love for both Spencer _and_ Spencer’s mom the next time he sees the other boy. They can share his heart.

“How are you doing, Brendon?” Ryan asks, a little while later. His tone has softened significantly from the hushed, joking tones earlier.

Brendon shrugs. He’s almost done with his plate, only has a couple more Reese’s cups and a Hershey’s Kiss left. He’s sure he knows what Ryan’s talking about, and it’s not about the rest of the weekend. It’s not about Jenna’s talk, or Pete’s talk, or even his own.

“I hated you,” he admits, staring out over the lake instead of looking at Ryan like anything other than the coward he is. “I hated you, and I hated this stupid camp. I was ready for this weekend to be the worst weekend of my life. But then I saw _Pete_ , and…” He trails off, no clue what the rest of that sentence could possibly be.

“Pete was probably a very startling first impression,” Ryan allows. “It is usually a girl doing the name tag fairy thing, you know. Pete’s just…Pete.”

Brendon nods. Pete doesn’t have any adjectives. Pete’s just _Pete_. “How does Patrick put up with him?” he asks, more than happy to change the subject. “He seems so _normal_.”

“It seems like a symbiotic relationship,” Ryan says. “Patrick gave the reality talk at the last Happening. He keeps Pete’s head out of the clouds, but Pete helps him get off the ground.”

“It’s all just so different,” Brendon mumbles. “Men in skirts and people like Gabe and Pete and, and…”

“You’re allowed to say it, you know,” Ryan tells him encouragingly. “You don’t have to, I don’t want you to feel pressured, but you are allowed to. Nobody here’s going to condemn you. Nobody’s going to yell at you. And if they do, I’ll get Spencer to fight them.”

Brendon’s brow furrows. “Aren’t you supposed to be the one fighting them?”

Ryan shakes his head. “I’m too scrawny. Only person I might be able to beat in a fight’s Gerard, but then I have to deal with Frank. Maybe I’ll get Frank to fight them.”

Brendon still can’t say it, even though he knows Ryan’s right. Nobody started shouting at Ash, nobody flipped their shit when she told them all, and there isn’t anyone but him and Ryan here anyway. But there’s something that stops him anyway, and he isn’t sure he knows what it is.

“Mark’s in our Prayer Chapel,” Ryan offers, “if he’d be easier to talk to. That’s what he’s in there for.”

Brendon thinks talking to Mark actually sounds great—a far cry from less than twenty-four hours ago, where he thought to himself he wouldn’t be seeking out the Spiritual Director under any circumstance.

“I…yeah,” he says. “Please.”

Ryan stands up, then holds out a hand to help Brendon to his feet. Brendon stands awkwardly, waiting for Ryan to put his shoes back on, then they’re heading back to the main part of the camp.

“So, is there a reason you’ve been carrying around that can of Coke without opening it?” Ryan asks curiously, still using a hushed tone. There’s very little conversation going on, even when Brendon sees groups of two or three people sitting or walking together, and what conversation there is is so hushed that Brendon can’t hear it even if he were to try.

“I’m…I’m not technically supposed to drink it,” Brendon admits. “Mormons aren’t allowed caffeine. It’s just…”

“You’re not sure you’re still a Mormon.”

“Something like that,” Brendon says, but it’s so low he’s not entirely sure Ryan hears.

Ryan just nods, so Brendon thinks maybe he did hear him, but then again he could just be nodding in an understanding of Brendon’s silence. Brendon can’t tell.

They’re in the Centrum now, and Ryan stops in front of one of the doors that Brendon had just been ignoring up ’til now. He didn’t think there was anything important in there. Ryan knocks on the door, then sits on one of the benches. “He might be with someone,” Ryan explains. Brendon sits beside him, but they don’t say anything else. Brendon just watches the trees outside of the pavilion, watches the clouds, waits. He thinks he should be nervous, should be second guessing the decision to talk to a priest, a priest that isn’t Mormon, but _he_ isn’t sure he’s Mormon anymore, he doesn’t want to be.

He’s Brendon, and he’s gay.

The door opens finally, and Jenna steps out, clutching her own paper bag in one hand and another piece of paper in the other. As Brendon watches, she heads in the same direction he and Ryan came from, towards the cabins and the lake and the outdoor sanctuary Brendon never actually got to see.

Ryan nudges him, and Brendon remembers that they’re here so he can talk to Mark. He stands up before he can change his mind, grabs his bag but leaves the soda (it’s probably warm and not any good now, anyway), and goes into the room.

Mark’s eyes go directly to Brendon’s name tag, then his eyes soften in understanding. “I was wondering when I’d see you, Brendon,” he says, familiarity in his tone even though they’ve never met. Brendon knows that means that Ryan actually _told_ Mark about what he’s going through, but he’s not angry this time.

Really, Brendon’s just tired.

And so he just talks to Mark. About the teachings of the Church of Latter Day Saints, about the first time he realized that he didn’t want a wife, about the first time he thought about kissing a _boy_ and the first time he got hard just from _looking_ at another male. He talks about how scared he was listening, week after week, to the Elders talk about what happens to homosexuals because he _was_ one. Mostly, though, he keeps talking about how _confusing_ it is, because he’s grown up his entire life with _one_ acceptable belief structure, and now he’s here and they’re telling him so many things that conflict with that belief structure and they’re telling him that it’s okay to be _different_ and Brendon doesn’t have any idea what to believe.

When he finishes, he doesn’t know how long he’s been talking, Mark doesn’t interrupt him at all, and there are tears running down Brendon’s cheeks again.

Finally, Mark asks a question that makes everything make sense and seem even more confusing all at once.

“What do you believe in, Brendon?”

“I…I believe that God loves us,” he says slowly, stumbling over his words a little. “I believe that sexuality is just as inherent as race, as gender. I believe that God doesn’t make mistakes, doesn’t make people gay, only to punish them for it when they die. I don’t think He cares if you drink coffee or not. I don’t think He wants everyone to believe exactly the same as everyone else, because what one person believes isn’t always what another person needs. I believe in a God that is exactly the God that you need, and only the God that you need. He is seven billion things for seven billion people, and you can’t preach what He looks like, what He sounds like, how He communicates, all as if it’s the same for every single person.”

Mark’s smiling, and it makes Brendon smile, too, even though he’s still crying.

“That wasn’t very Mormon of you,” Mark tells Brendon, but it’s not an accusation. “But it was very wise, and very Episcopalian.

Brendon isn’t Mormon anymore; he doesn’t want to be. He never wanted to be. Brendon is Brendon, he is apparently Episcopalian.

And Brendon is gay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys, look! I didn't forget!
> 
> I loved Saturday afternoon. I loved Saturday evening. I loved Happening.
> 
> The bags with notes and pictures and candies are called _Caritas_. At a Team Meeting, about one month before Happening, you get your position and the weekend's Bible verse. You also get a list of names, Team and Candidates, and you have a month to make Caritas for everybody. One year, I hand wrote the verse and a separate message for every single person. It was a lot. On top of the "general Caritas," you can write personal Caritas for friends/family. Brendon got personals from Ryan, Spencer, and (I'm thinking) maybe Mark, a little note from an Episcopalian priest for just in case he didn't get to talk to him.
> 
> Video before Reconciliation talk called "Lump" by Rob Bell. I wrote it from memory, feel free to look it up yourself!


	6. Chapter 6

When Brendon gets out of the prayer chapel, Ryan’s still sitting on the bench outside the door, but he’s been joined by Spencer. Spencer’s drinking Brendon’s Coke, but Brendon doesn’t mind. He doesn’t want his first taste of caffeine to be a warm can of Coke.

None of them say anything, but Ryan and Spencer both stand up. Before Brendon can even register what’s going on, all three of them are headed back in the direction of the outdoor sanctuary, Brendon in the middle. The only sound is Spencer, humming a song that Brendon doesn’t recognize under his breath. Ryan starts humming along, but Brendon still doesn’t recognize the tune. He wonders if it’s another song that they’ll sing later today, or maybe tomorrow.

When they make it back to the little offset from the trail, Ryan and Spencer don’t hesitate before toeing off their shoes and socks and sitting down, leaving just enough space between them for Brendon to sit. Brendon takes his shoes off this time, and skims his toes in the water. It’s cold, which is only to be expected in the tail end of October.

It’s still totally silent, and Brendon remembers that he _should_ be declaring his undying love for both Spencer and his mom, but the atmosphere that’s settled over the three of them is such a refreshing change from the stressful dark cloud that’s been looming over Brendon’s head since his failed attempt at coming out that he doesn’t dare try and change it. He’s never been a part of a silence this comfortable.

And so the three of them sit, staring out over the water and thinking, or praying (Brendon doesn’t know what the other two are doing), until they hear the ringing of Gerard’s bell. And suddenly, the entire atmosphere changes, and people start talking to each other, and there’s laughter from the main trail as the three of them stand and put their socks and shoes back on.

Spencer throws his arm around Brendon’s shoulders, and soon Ryan does the same. Brendon wraps his arms around both of them, and they walk that way, all the way down to the dining hall.

“Man, I am _not_ ready for the rest of the night,” Spencer complains suddenly.

Brendon perks up, hoping for more details. “What’s the rest of the night?”

“Late,” Ryan answers. “It’s _late_.”

“It’s a lot more like this afternoon, too,” Spencer adds. “More serious and emotionally taxing then anything else.”

Brendon’s already been through an emotional wringer; he doesn’t think he can handle any more.

“Hey, guys,” Pete says suddenly, popping up on Spencer’s other side and joining in on their chain. “Don’t suppose you’ve seen Patrick recently, have you?”

“Who’s hiding from who?” Ryan asks dryly.

“Hiding?” Pete repeats incredulously. “Who said anything about hiding?”

“Why else would you need to look for Patrick?” Spencer reasons. “You two are never away from each other unless you have to be.”

Pete scoffs. “I am offended that you would think that either of us has any reason to hide from the other.” He looks behind them. “But you haven’t seen him, have you?”

“You’ll see him at dinner,” Brendon points out, “whether you’re hiding or he is.”

“Fair point,” Pete concedes. “Neither of us is hiding.” He detaches himself from the group and goes ahead of them.

“One of them put a personal in the other’s Caritas,” Spencer says with certainty.

Ryan nods. “They both did,” he says. “Ten bucks says Pete’s the one who said it, though.”

Spencer shakes his head. “Pete’s too open to save it like that,” he argues. “Patrick said it.”

“Said what?” Brendon feels like he’s missing out on a joke.

“Use your context clues,” Spencer says. “Everything you’ve learned this weekend.”

Brendon still doesn’t get it.

* * *

The sign out in front of the door into the dining hall has a poster that says _Luigi’s_ in fancy handwriting, and Brendon recognizes the name as the name of the Italian restaurant from _Lady & the Tramp_. He hopes that means spaghetti.

The guy that Ryan was talking to earlier—before Brendon ran into the bathroom to try and hide from his problems—comes up to them. Brendon learns his name is Jon.

“Hey, so Patrick’s looking for Pete,” Jon says, after he’s been introduced to Brendon. He didn’t say anything along the lines of _so this is him_ , which Brendon appreciates.

“Pete said it,” Spencer told Ryan.

“Patrick said it,” Jon corrected. “He didn’t tell me, but the way he was acting practically screamed it.”

“Said _what_?” Brendon asks again. If Spencer tells him to use his context clues again, Brendon’s going to punch him. And not profess his undying love for him or his mom (probably his mom, but definitely not him).

“It’s not actually our place to say,” Ryan explains. “You’ll figure it out eventually, though.” Brendon still feels left out, but he can accept it not being their place to explain it to him.

“They’ll sort it out for themselves, at any rate,” Spencer says confidently. “They always do.”

Ryan shrugs. Brendon looks up and down the walkway, sees Patrick up near the front and Pete near the back. He doesn’t know what’s going on with the two of them, but they’re best friends, so he hopes everything works out well for them.

Gerard comes up, counting everybody in line, smiling at Brendon as he passes. Brendon watches him go, and as he passes Frank, Frank takes the hat and plops it on Mikey’s head, standing on his toes to do so. Gerard doesn’t do anything, just keeps going and counting. When he passes them again on his way back up the line, Mikey sets the hat back on his head. Brendon can see that Gerard’s smiling, though.

Gabe comes up to their group, then, Nate standing behind him and looking harassed. “Has anybody seen the absurd Wentzian boy?” Gabe asks, propping his elbow on top of Brendon’s head. Brendon’s tempted to elbow him in the side, but he restrains himself. Barely.

“Back there,” Ryan answers, pointing to where Pete’s talking to a girl Brendon doesn’t recognize. “Hiding from Patrick.”

Gabe looks to where Pete is, then to where Patrick is. “Huh,” he says thoughtfully. “This is a fascinating development. Come, Nate, we speak to Pete!”

Gabe heads off for Pete, Nate following behind him. He turns and mouths _Help me_ to Brendon and the others, but Brendon doesn’t know what he can do to help that doesn’t involve putting himself in Nate’s place—and God knows that’s the last thing he wants to do.

“God help that boy,” Jon says. Brendon doesn’t know which one they’re talking about.

“What grade’s Nate in, again?” Spencer asks.

“I think he might be a junior,” Ryan says thoughtfully. “He’d be a good choice.”

“He might not want to,” Jon points out, and again, Brendon’s feeling out of the loop. “And, besides, Pete’s a junior, too.”

“Pete won’t if Patrick isn’t up there with him,” Spencer counters immediately. “He’s already told me, he isn’t sure he’d be able to.”

“Patrick’s a fantastic choice for Head Gopher,” Ryan points out. “And I think Andy’s old enough to be considered, he’d be good for Chaplain.”

Brendon figures it out, they’re talking about the upfront leaders.

“Do you have to be a junior to be an upfront leader?” he asks, not wanting to feel out of the loop.

“You have to be a senior,” Jon corrects. “So you have Gabe, Victoria, and Jenna, who are all seniors, as upfront leaders for Happening 69—this Happening. Next Happening—70, in March—you’ll have Gerard, Ryland, and Tyler—who are also seniors. The team is going to vote for the Observing Upfront Leaders for next Happening, who will be upfront at 71, this weekend. Those people need to be juniors, so that they’ll be seniors by 71.”

Brendon nods. For the first time, something he’s been told about Happening makes perfect sense. He doesn’t know if it’s because he’s figuring things out, or if it’s just because Jon is good at explaining things. Brendon would like to think it’s the former.

The line starts moving, and when Brendon gets inside, he sees that they are, in fact, having spaghetti for dinner. The lights are low, there are candles on the tables, and the maitre d’s are wearing white button down shirts with black bowties. It’s a very intimate setting, too intimate for somewhere near a hundred people, but Brendon’s given up on figuring out the atmosphere of this whole ordeal.

They gather around the dining room and pray, then Brendon looks around for his name. When he finds it, the entire atmosphere suddenly seems even more intimate, the _Lady & the Tramp_ reference even more obvious, and Brendon’s ears fill with the sound of blood rushing. The placemat directly to the left of his reads _Ryan Ross._

Brendon sits, pretending very hard that Ryan isn’t going to be sat right beside him in less than five minutes. Across from him is a boy with dark hair, whose name tag reads _Ryland._ Brendon smiles at him nervously. The other seats begin filling up—a blond boy whose name tag reads _Soren_ , Nate, a pretty brunette named _Sarah_ , Melanie from Brendon’s small group—who shoots him a toothy grin—and Breezy the skit girl. Ryan joins them last, a cup of coffee in one hand and a bowl of red sauce in the other.

He sets the bowl down in front of Brendon. “The one at the table has meat in it,” Ryan says, by way of explanation. He sits down and takes a long sip from his coffee. When the big bowl of sauce makes its way to Brendon, he sees that Ryan was right—there’s hamburger meat inside. He passes it to Sarah without a second glance, instead pouring the sauce Ryan brought over his pasta.

“Is there any reason in particular that there’s a romantic setting over the dining room?” Melanie asks, pouring herself a glass of tea. Brendon, who had been reaching for the water, changes his mind. He wimped out on the soda, but _damn it_ he’s going to caffeinate himself, especially if Spencer and Ryan are to be believed and tonight’s going to go on forever. When the tea’s returned to the Lazy Susan, Brendon spins it around and pours himself a glass. He doesn’t look at Ryan as he does it.

“None at all,” Ryland says, at the same time Ryan says, “Nope.” Melanie stares at both of them in confusion.

“So somebody just decided, let’s make everybody uncomfortable on Saturday at dinner and force everyone to eat a candlelit dinner together?” Sarah asks, grabbing a breadstick.

“Basically, yeah,” Nate confirms.

“Honestly, this is one of the least surprising things that’s happened this weekend,” Brendon admits. Granted, he’s got the whole revelation of _Gay is Okay!_ to deal with, but there was also Pete dressed as a fairy, Gabe Saporta, men in grass skirts and coconut bras, casual discussions about adult men in drag, Josh wearing a pair of shorts that were way too tight and way too short, and the seemingly never-ending slew of teasing and poking fun at each other. Brendon thinks it’s safe to say that, even for people raised in the Episcopalian church, the atmosphere at dinner isn’t anywhere near as weird as some of the other things they’ve encountered.

He’s proven right when Breezy nods. “I felt the same way,” she confides. “Saturday night’s dinner wasn’t anywhere near as jarring as Josh Dun.”

“Josh has been an Energizer since his first year on Team,” Ryland offers. “I don’t know where those shorts came from, but I know where I want them to go.”

“Oh, me too,” Ryan agrees. “Spencer’s dresser.”

Soren shudders. “ _No_ ,” he says emphatically. “Oh, _please_ no.”

Brendon agrees with Soren. Those shorts need to be _burned_.

“Imagine the _blackmail_ material, though!” Ryan counters, and, okay, Brendon can see the appeal.

Still, though, “You still have to see Spencer in those shorts in order to get your blackmail material,” Brendon points out.

Ryan’s silent a moment. “Oh, yeah.”

“Look on the bright side,” Sarah says with a grin. “We don’t have to deal with those shorts in this weirdly intimate setting.”

“It’s the little things in life,” Nate mumbles. “Even better, I don’t have to deal with Gabe in this weirdly intimate setting, either.”

“I heard my name,” Gabe says suddenly, popping up between Brendon and Ryan, kneeling behind them. “Isn’t this romantic, my friends?”

“You know Victoria wanted to speak with you, right?” Ryland asks, as Nate seems to sink into his seat.

“Of course, I am well aware that Vicky-T has been seeking out by fabulous company,” Gabe declares grandly. “However, I am very busy, as the lovely Nate can tell you, and so I have no time to stop by the quaint little Gopher Hole where you two spend all your time.”

Ryland blinks. “So you’re hiding from her.”

Gabe looks affronted. “I would never hide from my incredibly organized partner,” he says. “I have been _busy_.”

“Gabe.” Ryland doesn’t look like he believes Gabe, and doesn’t look willing to put up with his shit either.

Gabe sighs. “Gerard is going to have fun with you, I see,” he says, climbing to his feet. “A no-nonsense Gopher. I can respect that.”

“What does Victoria want with you anyway?” Melanie asks, looking up at Gabe.

“I have no idea,” Gabe says. “But I’m sure it has nothing to do with the missing bag of Reese’s cups.” As he turns and walks up to the front of the dining hall, Brendon thinks it might have everything to do with the apparently missing bag of Reese’s.

Ryland lets out a laugh, taking a bite of his spaghetti and shaking his head. “It was about something for tonight, but I’m glad we’ve got that mystery solved.”

“Hang on,” Brendon says, something Gabe had said catching up with him. “Are you observing Victoria?”

Ryland nods. “I’m just glad that it’s Gerard that’s observing with me, and not someone more…eccentric.”

Brendon thinks maybe Ryland wanted to say _fucking insane_ , but couldn’t because they’re at church camp.

“I don’t think any other Head Gopher would be able to handle Gabe,” Soren says with a laugh.

“Not necessarily,” Nate argues, but it seems like he doesn’t actually want to defend the senior. “I mean, conversationally, sure, but Gabe does know when to act serious. Whenever he, Victoria, and Jenna are actually talking about something that has to do with this weekend, he’s practically a different person.”

Ryland nods in agreement. “Victoria told me Thursday that she wasn’t sure about it when she found out, but now there’s nobody that she’d rather have standing beside her.”

Brendon still doesn’t think he can handle Gabe in doses larger than he’s already had to, but he can respect the fact that Victoria can. And Nate hasn’t killed him or died yet, so that’s a bonus.

“Gabe’s a very loud and commanding presence,” Ryan says slowly. “But he’s got a good heart, and he knows what he believes in.”

Everyone at the table except Brendon, Melanie, and Sarah nod, and Brendon figures it’s just because he, Melanie, and Sarah hardly know Gabe at all.

“Anyway, how was everyone’s day?” Soren asks after a moment of silence to consider the possibility that Gabe isn’t _always_ that crazy.

There’s a mumbled chorus of _good_ and _great_ and _okay_ before Melanie, staring down at her plate, says, “Ashley goes to my school. When she started coming to my church, I didn’t try to think too hard about why. I was just glad to have someone my age there. I never would have guessed…”

Ryan nods. “She told me about it last Happening,” he says. “The Episcopal church doesn’t tend to say much on the subject of homosexuality, either for it or against. It’s a church that focuses heavily on interpretation.”

“Pete said something about EYE last year,” Soren adds, “about one of the North Carolina Dioceses. He said that he met a girl who’d gone to the convention the year Amendment One passed.”

“Quick question,” Sarah interjects.

“North Carolina’s Amendment One defined marriage as being between a man and a woman,” Brendon explains. He knows because he did a lot of research on it when it first passed. “The state would not recognize same-sex marriage, even if you got married in a state that allows it. It screwed over a lot of people, though, because it also outlawed Common Law marriage and other things like it. It’s been overturned since, but it was an amendment that was added to the North Carolina state constitution.”

“Well, anyway, one of the topics up for vote at the convention that year was how that diocese would, as a whole, vote. For the passing of the amendment, or against it.” Soren pauses to take a sip from his cup. “Pete said the girl described it as the longest debate of the convention, people saying ‘what’s wrong with same-sex marriage’ and others saying ‘everything is wrong with same-sex marriage’ and apparently, one guy who said ‘I have a gay son and I hate him because he’s gay,’ which pissed off the girl telling Pete about this and it pissed off Pete when he heard it.”

It pisses off Brendon, and he’s hearing this tale fourth-hand.

“So…what did they vote?” Breezy asks.

“Against the amendment,” Soren says. “The Diocese moved to vote against the passage of Amendment One.”

It goes unsaid, but that also means they voted _for_ the allowance of same-sex marriage. The Episcopalian Church, at least in North Carolina, has declared that homosexuality is not a sin. Even though Brendon’s already coming to terms with this concept, the idea that it goes that high is incomprehensible.

“Hang on, where did Pete meet some random girl from North Carolina?” asks Melanie.

Ryland, surprisingly, is the one that lights up and sits up a little straighter. “Pete went to something called the Episcopal Youth Event,” he explains. “E-Y-E. And it is _so much fun_. Basically, high school aged Episcopalians from all over the country all gather in one place, they exchange trinkets from their diocese, and they go to different seminar-style things and there’s some of the best worship services you’ll get the chance to attend. It’s only four days long but if you get the chance to go it is the _best_ four days. I met someone from that diocese too, but he didn’t go to that particular Convention.”

“The t-shirt’s really soft, too,” Nate adds. “At least the one from the one Suarez got to go to.”

“The t-shirt is very soft,” Ryland agrees. “Next EYE is in two years. If you get the chance, try to go. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and you might be going somewhere you won’t get the chance to go again.”

EYE seems like something Brendon isn’t prepared for. His world view has been entirely rewritten, he’s not ready for it to be widened. But if Ryland’s right, and it’s not for another two years, then maybe…

Who knows?

* * *

The next stop is the cabins. Brendon’s about to be confused, until Gabe explains it’s just an intermediary to bundle up. They’re spending a lot of time outside tonight, apparently, and they need to be warm. When Gerard rings the bell, they’ll go back to their small group meeting spaces, and that’s where Gabe stops explaining what comes next. They’re all dismissed and Ryan smiles at him softly, but doesn’t say anything.

Brendon pulls on a second hoodie, which is all he has because he didn’t realize that a) it’d be so cold, or b) that he’d be out after dark, when it would be this cold. He realizes that Ryland is in his cabin, the dark haired Gopher who’d said kickstarted the crossdressing males discussion this morning.

David’s grinning, pulling on a coat and a second pair of socks. Brendon sees merit to that idea and digs out two more socks from his suitcase. David reaches into his suitcase and pulls out two beanies, blue and yellow. He offers the yellow one to Brendon.

“Thank you,” Brendon says softly, pulling the hat on. He briefly considers bringing his blanket along, but decides against it. It might attract weird looks, would definitely get dirty, and would probably be a pain to drag along with him.

The bell rings, and Brendon makes his way to Cabin Two, where his group’s been meeting. Dallon’s already there, sprawled across the bed he’d said was his own. Brendon sits down beside him, in the space by his head.

“You can’t just sit your butt in front of someone’s face without saying hello,” Dallon says, but he makes no move to sit up or change his position in any way.

“Hello,” Brendon says, without thinking.

The rest of the group filters in, until the only person they’re missing is Spencer—but Brendon doesn’t think the Gophers are actually a part of their group, they just hang around and get snacks.

“Okay,” Hayley starts off, leaning against the wall by the door, “here’s what’s going to happen: Spencer is going to come and get us, and he’ll lead us where we’re going. There are three stops tonight, before we all reconvene in the Talk Room for a healing and worship service. Let tonight be somber, but not too much. We’re allowed to talk in between each stop, but when we get to each point, please be silent and mindful of those wishing to pray. Any questions?”

“I have one,” Jack says, raising a hand like they’re in a class. “About how late-ish are we going to be out?”

“Very,” Josh says. “So I hope all of you drank plenty of coffee.”

Brendon only had the one glass of iced tea, but since he’s never had caffeine before now, that might actually be enough.

Spencer shows up, then, before anybody else can ask another question. Brendon walks beside Melanie, talking about innocuous things (mostly how frigid and cold it is outside) until they get to the Centrum. Spencer brings them to the Prayer Chapel, where Brendon spoke with Mark earlier. They’re joined by another group, where Brendon recognizes Max and William and Mikey.

There’s a piece of twisted plastic hanging from the ceiling, and a metal bucket underneath it. There are rows of plastic chairs set up, and in front of them sit Mark, Jenna, and Tyler. The group fills in the empty seats.

When they’re settled, Jenna takes out a long nosed lighter and sets the plastic on fire. Brendon thinks that’s an environmental hazard. Tyler presses play on a small stereo that Brendon didn’t notice at first, and Kansas’s song “Dust in the Wind” starts playing.

“Does anyone know what a sacrament is?” Mark asks, after a moment. The plastic is melting, hitting the metal bucket with a noise Brendon can’t describe, but it’s very soothing.

Brendon doesn’t know what a sacrament is, even though he’s heard the word before. So he listens, and he learns that the definition is ‘an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.’ Learns that this means it’s a physical object that represents something extraordinary happening to the soul. Like water in a baptism is representative of rebirth of the spirit, and wedding bands are representative of a lifelong commitment to love. He learns that there are seven sacraments in all—Baptism, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Confirmation, Anointment of the Sick, Matrimony, and Holy Orders.

He doesn’t understand quite why they’re talking about it here, tonight, or why the night kicked off with this, but the low light and the soft music and the constant metallic _drip_ s from the melting plastic are calming him down more than even the outdoor chapel did. And he even understands some of the things his own church does a little more than he did before.

When they’re finished, Spencer and the other group’s gopher step out. After a bit, they come back in, and everybody stands up. They head up to the building that Brendon knows holds the Talk Room, but they go through a different door, into the back half of the building. There’s a trail of milk jugs with tea candles them, highlighting the path they’re supposed to take. Brendon wonders what would happen if he stepped outside of it—if they’d tell him to get back inside the lines or not.

Inside, there are two rows of chairs. Brendon’s group sits in one, the other group sits on the other side. Near the back corner, where the bar is, Brendon sees Gabe, Victoria, Gerard, and Ryland. When everyone is settled, the four of them switch off reading from papers, explaining that, at the Last Supper, Jesus washed the feet of his Apostles. This was a big deal because people had servants to wash the feet of their guests, and it wasn’t a fun job. These were people who didn’t bathe regularly, who always wore sandals in the desert, their feet were disgusting. Brendon had known about the washing of the feet, he hadn’t known everything else. They continue to explain that Jesus, by washing his Apostles’ feet himself, placed himself into a position of servitude, despite the way that he was always referred to as ‘Lord.’

Finally, they’re told to remove their socks and shoes, so that the Rector and Head Gopher, or the Observing Rector and Observing Head Gopher, can wash their feet, and place themselves into that same position of servitude.

When Gabe and Victoria get to Brendon, he sees that Nate and Ryland weren’t lying when they said Gabe could be serious. Brendon wouldn’t recognize him if he hadn’t already known it was him.

When it’s over, Brendon doesn’t so much feel like he’s just had his feet washed as he’s just had ice cold water poured over his feet and then had them dried off, but he understands the symbolism, and he appreciates the sentiment. Brendon pulls on his two pairs of socks and his sneakers, and Spencer and the other group’s Gopher stand up and lead them back outside, down the road and to the campfire pit Brendon had seen but hadn’t paid attention to. The rest of the team is there, around a happily crackling fire, some of them singing softly and some of them looking like they’re praying. Brendon sits, finding a spot between Max and Mikey.

Mikey’s staring down at his feet, and Brendon realizes that while Gabe and Victoria were washing his and his group’s feet, Gerard and Ryland were washing Mikey’s group’s feet. It must have been weird for the other boy, for his older brother to place himself in that role.

The singing continues, and Brendon doesn’t really think about anything. He focuses on the words for a while, looks up and sees Patrick and Pete huddled together, speaking in hushed tones. He sees their hands intertwined and it hits him, what Ryan and Spencer and Jon were talking about before dinner. He looks away from them, after that, choosing instead to look at the fire and focus on the sparks shooting up to the sky.

They’re joined by another two groups, and Lauren squeezes herself between Max and Brendon. “You don’t mind, right?” she asks, as she does. Both boys shake their heads. In fact, Brendon’s glad for her body heat, even if it’s a bit weird for him to be pressed so closely to another person. He was about two minutes away from asking Max to huddle for warmth—this is much less awkward.

The other two groups come out and join them, and there’s a couple more songs before everybody stands up and make their way back up to the Talk Room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's possible it wasn't actually plastic that was hanging from the ceiling, but a weirdly shaped candle. It looked like plastic, I'm going with plastic.
> 
> Saturday night's dinner is actually set up like a romantic, Italian restaurant. I don't know why. Nobody ever explained it. I never questioned it. I was a maitre d' and I just let it be. It was fun. We wore bowties.
> 
> The definition of "sacrament" is a direct quote from the Episcopalian catechism found in the back of the Book of Common Prayer, but I didn't use the catechism to find the definition. I remembered it from confirmation class. My priest liked to talk about how he could rattle the definition off, but seminary didn't teach him what the definition _means_. He never told us what it means either. Oh the joys of interpretation.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apostles

It’s the first worship service Brendon has ever attended that wasn’t Mormon. Some things don’t change, a lot of things do. The music that they’re all singing is the same music they’ve been singing since the start of the weekend—in fact, a lot of the songs are songs they’ve already done—and the prayers are up on the projector screen. He’s willing to bet that isn’t typical of an Episcopalian service, just a Happening one.

There are only two readings—the same verse from Romans that was on so many of the notes Brendon got in his bag and a Gospel reading, which is only a few verses long. It’s the passage where Jesus is asked to choose the most important of the Commandments, and he says to love God and love your neighbor.

Brendon doesn’t exactly _love_ his neighbor, but he does appear to have a massive crush on him. That probably isn’t what Jesus meant.

After the readings, Mark—who’s officiating the service—says, “This is typically the part of the service where the Sermon and the Peace would be, but we’ve heard many Sermons already, and we’re moving the Peace to the end.” Brendon isn’t sure that they’re allowed to just _move the service around_ but he isn’t going to tell anyone how to do their jobs. He’s new to this whole thing, maybe it is okay.

The next part of the service is the Healing, which takes Brendon a moment to figure out the meaning of. There are three or four people in each corner of the room, and everyone is congregating to the corners. Brendon heads into the fray closest to him, and everyone is placing hands on each other. Slowly, he gets pushed forward into the front of the group, standing in front of…

Ryan. Ryan, Patrick, and Tyler. The three of them shift, Patrick holding a small container, Tyler holding a piece of paper, and Ryan directly in front of him.

“Is there anything in particular you’d like to pray for, Brendon?” Ryan asks softly, and it seems like a joke to Brendon. Ryan of all people should know the laundry list of problems Brendon has, considering the fact that almost all of them are only on that list because of Happening. Before Brendon got out of his parent’s car, his only problem in his life was the fact that he was gay and his parents couldn’t accept it. Now, he’s not sure if he wants to be Episcopalian or if he doesn’t want to be anything at all, he has no idea how to convert even if he wanted to, he’s spent the entire first half of his weekend judging everybody here and the rest of the time terrified of what’s been happening to him, _and his parents still probably won’t accept his sexuality._

“I don’t know,” he says finally. “I don’t know what I’m going to tell my parents.”

Ryan nods like he understands, which he probably does. He dips his thumb into the container Patrick’s holding and draws a cross on Brendon’s forehead. He lays both of his hands on Brendon’s head and reads a prayer off of the paper Tyler’s holding, a prayer of healing and comfort, then closes his eyes and says,

“Lord, thank you for Brendon. He’s been through so much, and yet his smile is bright and unbothered, his laugh loud and joyous. We ask you to help him, though, in this time of struggle and fear and uncertainty. Help him to see who he is so that he may be the person you put him on this Earth to be. Give him aid with the words he needs to speak to his parents, so that they can stand beside him rather than against him. Remove from him the doubt and second-guesses so that he may move through his future with confidence and support. Amen.”

Brendon hadn’t meant to cry anymore this weekend, or at least not today. But he is crying as he hugs Ryan, as he hugs Patrick and Tyler, as he steps back to let the next person go.

It takes a lot—a lot of time, a lot of tears, a lot of prayers, a lot of hugs—before everything goes back to being a worship service. They take communion together, something Ryan tells Brendon he’s allowed to do because he’s Christian, even if that Christianity is Mormon.

And then the Peace, something that takes forever and a day because everybody seems to want to be hugging everybody else. Even Brendon hugs everyone he can reach, from Spencer to Melanie to Max and he even hugs Gabe and Pete.

After what seems like hours, Gabe moves to the front and quiets the room.

“Alright, so we need you all to stay very quiet for just a little while longer,” he says. “We’re going to go to the dining hall for something, but it’s another pretty serious thing, so we want to keep the prayerful atmosphere we’ve had all night.” Everyone starts walking, and Brendon’s tired of being serious. He’s cried in front of a lot of people and he doesn’t want to anymore. He’s exhausted—emotionally and physically—he’s cold from the frigid outside air and hot from the layers and the heat of the building they’re about to leave, he’s scared of tomorrow when he has to face his parents. He just wants to go to bed.

At least his blanket won’t hate him for being gay and not being Mormon.

When they get to the deck outside the dining hall, Gabe stands up at the front and says, so quietly Brendon can barely make it out, “Okay, when we get in there, you need to be very quiet, because…” He raises his voice then, practically shouts, “IT’S TIME FOR THE HAPPENING DANCE PARTY!”

Brendon’s too tired to dance, but the doors open and he can hear the music, and everyone else seems excited enough to cover for him. They go inside, where the lights are practically off, there are streamers hanging from the rafters, and there are _so many_ balloons littering the floor. Patrick, Hayley, and Frank are standing on chairs to the side, clearly playing DJ.

Brendon spends the entire party alternately hanging out by the snack table, where the remaining snacks from earlier in the afternoon seem to have migrated, and being dragged out to where everyone else is dancing. First it’s Ryan and Spencer, then it’s Pete, then it’s Gabe, then it’s Pete again (“Everybody needs to dance the Cupid Shuffle, Bden!”). At one point, Brendon’s joined by Gerard, who’s gotten incredibly twitchy. “I’m terrified of—AH!—balloons,” he explains tensely, when Brendon asks him what’s wrong. Brendon feels bad—everybody’s stomping on the balloons, which can’t be doing Gerard any favors. About then, Pete comes by for the _third time_ , and Brendon’s about to tell him to fuck off, church camp be damned, but Pete just hugs Gerard.

“I’m trying, man,” he says.

Gerard jumps when another balloon pops, but he hugs Pete back. “Always happens,” he replies, and he doesn’t seem particularly upset about the fact that people aren’t being considerate of his fear.

“People always start popping the balloons?” Brendon repeats.

“Well, yeah,” Pete says. “You put a bunch of balloons on the floor, then put a bunch of teenagers in the room, those teenagers aren’t leaving the room with any of those balloons still in tact.” He lets go of Gerard, and grabs onto Brendon’s arm. “Dance with me, lil dude!”

Brendon just groans.

* * *

When Brendon went to bed last night, he did so with yesterday morning’s experience dictating how he’d be woken up—by a bell, followed by Gabe being a fucking weirdo. So to wake up to see Ryan standing over him and gently shaking him awake was a somewhat pleasant surprise. And then Brendon remembers that he isn’t wearing a shirt and his hair is probably sticking up in all directions from sleeping on it wet. He sits up to see a lot of his cabin mates being woken by other Team members.

“You should probably put on a hoodie,” Ryan says softly. Brendon does, and throws on some shoes for good measure. Ryan hands him the blanket he’s holding, a really ugly striped one that Brendon takes, unfolds, and realizes it’s a poncho.

“No,” he says, seeing the others in the cabin putting their ponchos on.

“Yeah, mine was pink,” Ryan counters. “And not even tasteful pink, the one you could just say was _salmon_ or _peach_. No, it was _pink._ ” He points to David, donning the hot pink blanket poncho that Soren had handed him with an insane amount of pride.

Brendon puts the poncho on without any more argument. Ryan hands him a daisy. “This goes in my hair, doesn’t it.” It’s not a question, even though that’s how he words it. Ryan just shrugs.

“Behind your ear works fine.”

Brendon huffs, but puts the flower where it supposedly belongs, and then he and Ryan go outside. The whole Team is out there, wearing white t-shirts that have _Happening_ on the chest. The backs he can see have giant butterflies on the back, and Brendon is, yet again, confused about _why the butterflies_. He also feels terrible for them, because it’s very cold and they’re all wearing t-shirts.

Everyone’s singing, too, just repeating “ _This is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made, that the Lord has made! We will rejoice, we will rejoice and be glad in it, and be glad in it! This is the day that the Lord has made, WHOO! We will rejoice and be glad in it! This is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made!_ ” over and over again. Ryan starts up immediately, but Brendon’s too tired to sing about being happy.

The trickle of people coming out of cabins stops, and they all move as a unit—tired Candidates and singing Team (although some of the Candidates have started singing, now, too)—to the Talk Room.

The partition is moved back, once again revealing the room in all its glory. There’s a table with donuts, croissants, and other continental breakfast-type stuff, a cooler beside it with Capri Suns and orange juice. Brendon doesn’t know how his body will handle coffee, but he knows that caffeine is something that people drink to wake themselves up, so that’s where he goes.

“If you want to have a slightly less terrible first experience,” Ryan says, coming up behind Brendon with a croissant in one hand, “fill up the cup halfway with coffee and the other half with cream. Then you load it up with sugar and hope for the best.”

Brendon fills about a third with coffee, the rest of the way with little cream cups, and so much sugar that he thinks it might stop his heart. He takes a sip, and decides that he’s made a terrible mistake. Coffee is horrible. But he’s still tired, and if the caffeine doesn't help the obnoxious amount of sugar absolutely will, so Brendon drains the rest of the cup very quickly, scalding his tongue and throat in the process.

Ryan snorts. “That’s one way to do it,” he says with a smile. He goes over to Spencer, and Brendon decides to follow—grabbing a donut and a cold orange juice on the way.

“… _So_ tired,” Spencer’s whining, leaning his head on Ryan’s shoulder. “And nobody on Celebration Team sticks out this year.”

Ryan looks around, frowns, and says, “Huh.” Brendon looks around the room too, seeing that there are people he hasn’t seen before. He also notices a new cross that hadn’t been here before, with daisies covering the front.

“I could have sworn Z was doing Celebration this year,” Ryan continues, bringing Brendon back to the conversation.

Spencer shrugs. “I thought Ruess was doing Celebration, but he’s not here either.”

Brendon doesn’t feel like asking any more questions, and he’s too tired to formulate them anyway. So he just hangs out around Ryan and Spencer, not really paying attention until Spencer says, “Let’s go get a picture.”

And then Ryan and Spencer are herding Brendon over to the photographer, whose name is Jake, according to his name tag. Brendon figures that Gabe probably said his name in that portion of his Talk, but that’s one of the points where Brendon wasn’t paying attention. And, at any rate, he probably decided the photographer wasn’t important to him, like he decided about Mark.

Jake takes a few pictures of the three of them, a normal one, a Charlie’s Angels one (Ryan’s idea), and two where Ryan and Spencer are lifting Brendon into the air (which Brendon didn’t see coming and so one of those pictures probably features his face screwed up in terror). Brendon doesn’t know the fate of these pictures, but he knows that he’s going to do everything in his power to keep them away from everybody else.

After a while (in which Brendon is whisked to various places to sign three pillowcases and a bed sheet), everyone gathers to the front of the room to sing a few songs. They all sit, and the skit crew comes out. This time, the skit is about a bunch of couples at the movies, except one of the couples has to sit on opposite ends of the row of chairs. It starts off with Jon, on one end, passing a bag of Doritos down to a girl he’d called Greta, down on the other. Along the way, the people between them open and eat the chips, so that by the time it gets to Greta, it’s completely empty.

“Hey, babe,” Greta calls down the line. “I’m kind of thirsty.”

By this point, Brendon can see what happens next. A can of Sprite gets passed down, and it’s the same thing. It gets all the way down to Greta, empty. Pete, sitting next to Greta, seems to have to chug half the can. He passes it to her with a belch.

Greta makes a face of disgust, one that may not have been faked, because that was actually kind of gross. A little time passes, and Greta makes a show of checking her own breath—Brendon doesn’t get why, it’s not like she and Jon are going to be kissing each other any time soon—recoiling, and calling to Jon, “Babe, can I have some gum?”

Jon pulls out a bunch of BubbleTape—which Brendon didn’t know still existed, and is going to have to make an effort to find some—and passes it to the person beside him.

Pete’s the only one who doesn’t seem phased by the idea of putting a giant wad of gum that’s already been in _five other people’s mouths_ into his own mouth. He even blows a bubble that Brendon is very impressed by before pulling the very well chewed wad of gum out of his mouth and handing it over to Greta, who takes it with another look of disgust and puts it into the empty chip bag.

Finally, Jon decides to try—and Brendon thinks that this has to be the weirdest thing he’s ever seen, including the viral videos he watches without his parents’ permission at school—to pass a kiss down. He kisses the cheek of the girl next to him, who kisses Joe on the cheek, who kisses the girl beside him, who kisses the boy beside her, who kisses the girl next to him, who kisses Pete, who taps Greta on the shoulder and tackles her to the ground, making it look like they’re furiously making out. They parade into the back, but the couples have switched around, Jon with the girl who’d been beside him all the way down to Pete walking off with Greta.

After the skit, they sing more songs, do a couple Energizers—old ones, Bundem (Pete manages not to fall this time) and Numa Numa—do more songs. Gabe stands at the front when it’s over and instructs the Candidates to the back, where they’re meant to leave their ponchos (Brendon doesn’t miss it in the slightest) and there are t-shirts waiting. Apparently, every single person is going to be wearing the Happening shirts today. Brendon kind of wants to be a rebel, but Gabe is in his cabin and absolutely would not let him get away with it.

Brendon’s butterfly is mostly purple, with a little bit of pink near the cross that makes up the body, and a little bit of blue at the edges of the wings. Spencer’s butterfly, he sees, is mostly pink, while Ryan’s is mostly blue.

Brendon wonders what he’d do if he’d grabbed one like Spencer’s first. He’s startled to realize the answer is _absolutely nothing._

* * *

Brendon walks into breakfast, having to do so quietly because the maitre d’s are pretending to be asleep and they’re supposed to be considerate, and stops at the first table he sees. The placemats don’t have butterflies like they had all the rest of the weekend. Each one is completely different, and they seem to be personalized for each person.

He doesn’t look for his right away, he just goes to a spot on the edge of the room and takes the hand beside him. A quick glance shows it’s Sarah, staring at the table in front of them. She looks up at him and grins, and Brendon politely doesn’t say anything about the tears sparkling in her eyes. He figures he’ll find out soon if she’s willing to share, and if he never finds out than it means she isn’t willing, and that’s her right.

They wake up the maitre d’s when everyone’s inside, then they pray, and Brendon looks around for his table.

When he finds his placemat, he doesn’t even sit down at first. It’s laminated—a few of them are, he’d noticed, but not many. There’s a (poorly) hand drawn picture of him, playing the accordion, which he does in his backyard sometimes. There’s also a picture of the tomato and cucumber from VeggieTales, and the words _I like loving God because He first loved me. I like feeling special, I like being me._

He knows immediately it was made by Ryan, and Spencer probably helped. Brendon doesn’t know if he wants to hug them or punch them.

The meal itself passes uneventfully, except for the part where Pete comes up and places Gerard’s hat on Brendon’s head. After a moment of shocked staring, Brendon hands the hat off to Tyler, who gets up and returns the hat to the right person.

When the meal is over, Gabe says that they’re going to be sharing the placemats. Each person is to stand up, say their name, and describe the placemat and what it’s supposed to mean. Brendon doesn’t want to tell the whole large group what Ryan’s trying to tell him, but maybe he doesn’t have to.

There’s a lot of different things, photographs on some placemats and drawings on others. Some only have words. Frank’s placemat only says John 11:35, which he explains was the verse he memorized in his confirmation class—the verse itself just says _Jesus wept._ Josh Dun’s placemat has a picture of the shorts, and only the shorts (and a very tiny amount of leg) with the caption _it’s all about the shorts!_ Brendon thinks Josh might have a legacy, here.

Then, it’s Brendon’s turn. He stands up and shows his placemat, explains how he’s slowly learning to play the accordion. He doesn’t explain the VeggieTales reference.

Nobody asks him to.

After breakfast, they all go back to the cabins to finish packing up their things. Gabe tells them that they’re going to be bringing their stuff to the Centrum, then going back to the Talk Room.

Once again, there are songs, and new Energizers. For the first time, Brendon actually halfway enjoys the dancing, even though he trips over his own feet halfway through the first one. He starts wishing that he’d been more open-minded coming in, not as determined to hate everything about Happening just because it was a church camp.

When everything’s over, they sit down, and Gabe stands up front and says, “Now, at the start of the weekend, I introduced the wonderful Jake Chamseddine as the photographer for the weekend. He’s been snapping pictures the whole time we’ve been here, and he’s edited a lot of them into a slideshow for us all.”

There are pictures of the campground, pictures of the people playing Frisbee and four square and basketball and, pictures of the Candidates checking in. There’s one of Brendon, William by his side, and even Brendon-now can tell that Brendon-then was scared, defensive, and closed off.

There’s another picture of Brendon in the Centrum, with Pete and Patrick on either side of him, where Pete’s smacking Patrick in the face with a fairy princess wand. _Lying is a sin._ Brendon hadn’t realized, then, that they were _dating_. Lying is a sin, yes. Homosexuality is not.

There are pictures of the Hula dancing maitre d’s, pictures of the Energizers, of Gabe at the podium, of the icebreaker games. Again, there’s a picture of Brendon, winning the rock, paper, scissors game. For just a moment, Brendon looks like he’s having fun. There are pictures of Tyler at the podium, pictures of the games in the Centrum Brendon played with his small group. (His own small group is not pictured.)

There are pictures of Ryan, looking scared and vulnerable as he bears his heart on his sleeve.

That’s the end of the Friday pictures, but there are a whole lot from yesterday, too. The jazzercise maitre d’s, the Energizers. Brendon had thought he’d seen the last of Josh Dun’s shorts, but nope. There are two pictures of the whole group, one picture of Josh alone, and a picture only of Josh’s ass. Brendon’s eyes are bleeding.

There are pictures of the skit from that morning, the girls with makeup applied by two teenage boys behind them with no mirrors. Pictures of Pete at the podium, smiling then terrified then smiling again. There are pictures of the _faith_ collages that they made, each group pictured as they present. Brendon-then still looks uncomfortable, but less prickly and more scared. Brendon-now realizes that it’s the picture of a boy whose world is slowly changing entirely.

Then it’s Jenna’s talk, it’s Breezy talking to Pete-Jesus, it’s Pete-Jesus on the cross and the band singing their song.

It’s more Energizers, it’s Mark Hoppus in a chair at the front. It’s Ash’s talk. It’s a picture of Brendon, reading one of the notes. He think’s it might be Ryan’s. Brendon-then looks like the world around him’s crashing down. _It was._

It’s shots of teenagers around the camp. At the campfire pit, on the dock, on the cabin porches. There’s a picture of three teenagers on an outcropping of a rock, shot from behind them. Brendon can tell it’s him, Ryan, and Spencer.

It’s dinner, the “fancy” Italian restaurant, the confetti and the candles on the tables. It’s the washing of the feet, the campfire, Jenna and Mark and Tyler in the Prayer Chapel. The dance party, shots of Brendon and Pete dancing—rather, Pete dancing and Brendon visibly calculating the best way to escape.

Sunday morning, Candidates in ponchos with daisies in their hair. That’s when Brendon realizes his daisy is still behind his ear, his and a few others’. Brendon also learns the fate of the pictures he took with Ryan and Spencer. As with many of the other pictures, the face Brendon’s making as he’s hoisted into the air by his two new friends gets a lot of laughs. Even Brendon has to admit, it’s a _funny_ picture.

When the slideshow is all over, Gabe introduces Ryland for the Apostles talk.

“Many people, myself included, were taught that Jesus had twelve disciples. We’re taught later that Jesus had twelve apostles. This change in vocabulary about ten years into our Christian education was more than enough to make us all believe that these words are synonymous. They aren’t.”

This. Brendon knows _this._

“By definition, leaving out the associations to Christ, the word _disciple_ means ‘a follower or student of a teacher, leader, or philosopher,’ while the word _apostle_ means ‘a vigorous and pioneering advocate or supporter of a particular policy, idea, or cause’ or ‘a messenger or representative.’ Big difference.

“Jesus had twelve apostles. But he had _thousands_ of disciples. Now we, as Christians, are disciples. But we, as Christians, are meant to be _so much more_. We are not followers, the way others are followers. We are meant, we are _asked_ to be apostles. Jesus asked for us to be like the twelve, not the thousands.

“Now, I know, this sounds impossible. Daunting. Like too much to ask. I mean, look around. This room, this room is full of teenagers. We’re in high school. How, exactly, can we be expected to travel the world and spread the Word like the Twelve?”

Brendon thinks of Mission, of the Elders of the Church. That’s exactly what they do, go out to places without the Good News and they spread the Word. Granted, they aren’t spreading the word of Jesus, they’re spreading Joseph Smith’s word.

Brendon doesn’t know if he believes in the Word of Jesus, but he knows he doesn’t believe Joseph Smith. And he knows that he definitely isn’t comfortable with spreading the word to people who don’t want to hear it.

“Well, we aren’t. That’s the thing, we’re not going around to tell the whole world anything. That’s not what Jesus wanted, that’s never what Jesus wanted. We can’t go around and tell people to accept Jesus into their hearts, nobody’s going to listen to us. We’re teenagers, we don’t know what we’re talking about!

“Actually, it’s not about that at all. I mean, yeah, okay, adults need to take teenagers more seriously than they do, but that’s a battle that we’ll deal with at a much later date. No, the reason that nobody would listen to us is because the Christians in the media are…well, a joke. Pushy, overbearing, and not really Christian at all. They won’t listen to us if we just try to shove Jesus in their face. It’s like people hear ‘spread the Word’ and think it means ‘throw the Bible in strangers’ faces and shout _JESUS!_ ’ which I can assure you is a bad idea and will get you suspended, grounded, and possibly arrested, not to mention the part of the Bible where Jesus said something to the tune of ‘subtlety is key.’ No, being an apostle is something that somehow manages to be simultaneously easier and far more terrifying all at once. Being an apostle means _show_ the message, not preach it.

“But what does that mean? It means, quite simply, love. And acceptance. We are Christians, advocates for Christ, and to be that means that we do not judge, do not condemn. We show love, even to those who do not show love in return. We do not shout ‘burn in hell’ to those who believe different from us, who act different from us, who live differently from us. We only show them love, the love of God and Jesus, the love of a true Christian, and, in doing so, they will see that our God is a kind God, and they will ask us to tell them the Word.

“I grew up in a town with only one church, and they were very…well, they did shout ‘burn in hell’ to anyone who wasn’t a member of the congregation. My parents, who’d both come from a Christian background, didn’t even try bringing me or my brothers into this church. They didn’t want us to be the same way. They did try to teach us themselves, had us pray and all the things you can do without actually going to church. But when you go to school and have to deal with the kids who were a part of this church, citing Bible verses on the playground for why playing on the monkey bars is a sin, your parents aren’t going to be very successful in their attempts to teach you that God is anything but cruel.

“When I moved into this diocese’s reach, where there were more options, my parents started going to church again. I was twelve, and old enough to be given the option to go along or stay home. Given my less-than-stellar experiences, I chose home.

“And so it went. Until one of the kids in my class, who I always ate lunch with and studied with and all the other things you do with middle school friends, he wore a cross on his neck to school one day.

“Now this cross, this golden colored cross no bigger than the pad of my thumb, I was scared of it. Because Christians scared me at the age of twelve. But nothing changed. I didn’t mention it, he didn’t mention it. We played Pokemon on the bus, went to each other’s homes to study and forgot about homework entirely.

“And then we saw the Special Ed class in the hall. I knew they existed, I knew they were there. They were in my old school, of course they were here. And a group of eighth graders were making fun of them. I knew that happened to, but these weren’t just eighth graders—two of them were twice my size. And my friend told them to stop, that it was ridiculous to mock someone for something they had no choice in.

“And then he got shoved in a locker and I had to go find the janitor to help him out. But immediately, instead of just forgetting about the encounter like I wanted to, he dragged me to the Special Ed classroom at the end of the school day.

“We were there for an hour and a half, but it felt like eternity. It was hard, at first, talking to them, because their words aren’t always easy to decipher. But by the end, I had learned that they’re funny. They’re smart. I was dragged there by one friend, and then I was pulled away from four new ones.

“He was still wearing his tiny golden cross. And in his father’s car, on the way to my house, I asked him about it.

“He’s the real apostle. At the age of twelve, this kid was more effective at spreading God’s message than anybody in my old hometown. And, at the age of twelve, I accepted it more completely than I think anybody there had. And I have been living every single day, trying to give everyone the same kindness and compassion that I was taught to give to a class of kids who were different from me, because that’s the only real way to spread Christ’s teachings. Amen.”

Brendon usually stares after the person who gave the talk as they walk out the door, but this time he’s staring around the room. At Ryan, who he’s been staring at since Ryland mentioned his friend with a cross around his neck. At Spencer, who told him that first day (was it really less than 48 hours ago?) that he agreed with Brendon and Ryan should have kept out of it. At Gabe and Pete and even Frank, who subtly showed him that there were options and an openness to this branch of Christianity that Brendon never would have thought to explore. At William, who greeted Brendon when he got out of his parents’ car, who outright told him that this wasn’t anything like what he was expecting.

He doesn’t notice as the skit group sets up for another skit until it starts. Breezy’s sitting at a chair, separated from a whole row of them. Jon comes up to her. “I’m here for an appointment,” he says.

“Name?” Breezy requests, pantomiming typing at a keyboard.

“Jon Walker.” Jon flashes her a grin. Brendon wonders what sort of person Jon is outside of Happening—he seems to drip charisma.

“Alright, Mr. Walker. Take a seat in the waiting room, the doctor will be with you shortly.”

Joe comes in next, faking a serious-sounding coughing fit (Brendon assumes it’s fake; otherwise Joe should definitely see a real doctor about it). He checks in with Breezy, then sits next to Jon. A moment later, Jon starts coughing, slowly at first, before it’s as serious as Joe’s was. Meanwhile, Joe stops coughing, until he stands up and says, “Oh, hey, I’m all better.” He pats Jon on the shoulder. “Get better, man.”

Next is Greta, sneezing. Jon’s still coughing, but when Greta sits beside him, he starts sneezing too. Sneezing and coughing and sounding generally miserable. Greta gets up and leaves, too.

Another girl comes up—Brendon can’t see her name tag, but he recognizes her as one of the girls from the movie theater skit this morning—scratching at her skin. “I think I have poison ivy,” she tells Breezy, but it’s gone as soon as she sits beside Jon.

By this point, Jon’s alone in the “waiting room” again, but he’s coughing, sneezing, and scratching. Brendon doesn’t know how much worse his situation can get when Pete comes running in. Screaming. With a pillow shoved up his shirt.

“THE BABY’S COMING! THE BABY IS COMING!”

Jon gets a wide, panicked look on his face before he stands up quickly, knocking the chair over, and runs out, screaming, “GET ME OUTTA HERE!”

Brendon can’t help laughing, and the smile doesn’t leave his face, even after they head out for lunch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that I wrote that there were a lot of pics of Brendon, but I actually wrote this after going through the photos from my first Happening and HOLY SHIT were there a lot. It's also just a really easy way of stressing how short a time this story spans--Brendon showed up on Friday, at about four-ish, and he's leaving on Sunday at three. A _lot_ has happened to our boy, I wanted to show that by cataloguing Brendon's emotions in a short passage.
> 
> Also, I have no idea why Pete was the pregnant woman in the skit. I have no idea why Pete does anything in this story, tbh. I just thought it was funny.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warm Fuzzies and The World

After lunch, they go straight to their small group spaces, just like yesterday. Brendon feels like it’s the last time. It probably is.

They’re coming up with a skit about apostleship, which isn’t something that Brendon contributes a lot to. Everyone is spitballing ideas, but Brendon’s just mulling over the alternate definition to the word. In the Mormon church, Apostles are absolutely those obnoxious assholes shouting _JESUS_ and _JOSEPH SMITH_ as they throw the Bible and the Book of Mormon in your face. It’s a lot for Brendon to come to terms with, that it’s possible to share teachings without being a total dick.

Luckily, Brendon’s in a small group with Melanie, Jack, and Alex, so while it’s true that everybody (but him) contributed, those three really did the most work. Nobody complained, it’s just that the three of them had the best ideas.

They go back to the Centrum, which confuses Brendon. He’d been expecting the Talk Room.

The Skit group goes first, showing two different kinds of apostle. The obnoxious asshole, played by Pete, and the kind like Ryland’s friend, played by Greta. Pete’s trying to convince Joe to come to his youth group, exclaiming things like, “We talk about how great Jesus is!” and “If you don’t accept Jesus then you’ll go to Hell!” and Joe backs away slowly, saying, “Thanks man, but I’m Jewish.”

Greta comes up then, and says, “Hey, do you want to come to our youth group meeting Sunday? We’re going to be planning our lock-in and then maybe we’ll play Uno Attack. Or the leader will teach us fencing again.”

“Your youth group leader gives you fencing swords?” Joe asks, apparently forgetting that he’s Jewish.

Greta nods. “And there will be cookies. I’m making them. I’m told my cookies are amazing.”

Joe looks back at Pete, who’s moved on to terrorizing some other poor person. “The thing is,” Joe starts, and he explains to Greta that he’s not really Christian. His family’s Jewish, but he’s not sure he agrees with them either. Greta’s nodding understandingly the whole time.

“Well, if you promise to not be a jerk who interrupts our Bible reading and treat the ten minute discussion like a joke, you can still definitely have some cookies and play games.”

The scene changes, and everyone is at Greta’s youth group meeting, except Pete, who’s all alone. He goes up and asks them if he can join, and they say yes. Everybody has fun, the cookies are magical, and they do, in fact, learn some fencing. Brendon wonders if that kind of youth group actually exists.

When it’s Brendon’s group’s turn to present their skit, Brendon makes the mistake of looking over at Ryan and Spencer. Ryan grins, like he can tell Brendon’s having fun, and Spencer waves.

Their skit is simple: Jack and Alex are the obnoxious assholes, shouting at people on the street that the apocalypse is nigh and you must repent and accept Jesus in your heart or you will die and then your soul will go to hell.

Meanwhile, Brendon and Hayley are doing charity work, volunteering with kids and helping feed the homeless and all these good things. (These kids and homeless are played by Melanie and Josh.)

Dallon comes up to Jack and Alex, with a piece of paper on his chest that reads JESUS like Pete wore yesterday, and says, “My children, your efforts are appreciated, but if you continue in this way they will be futile. Unkind words and harsh threats are not the solution, the means by which to spread my Word.” He points oner to Brendon and Hayley. “See the kindness that the pure of heart have shown. People will see them and they will say that God is kind, and they will follow Him. Truly, they are my apostles.”

Brendon doesn’t feel good being the one that’s used as a prime example of a true apostle. He’d wanted to be one of the homeless people, but Spencer had shown up right at that moment and said that he’d be a perfect apostle. Brendon feels like it’s a lie, even if it is just a skit.

Immediately following, everyone settles back down. Brendon thinks there will be more music, or another Talk. All that happens is that someone sets out a chair and Victoria sits down in it, holding what looks like an old, handmade book in her lap.

She reads them the story in the book, a story about two little kids who found a pile of something called Warm Fuzzies. The creatures made them happy, and they brought a bunch back to their village to share with everybody who lived there. The villagers were all always happy, giving Warm Fuzzies to each other every time they met one another. Everyone was always filled with comfort and love.

One day, the witch, who had lived near the village, was upset. She used to make love potions for the village, but now that the Warm Fuzzies were going around, nobody had need of her services. When she met a villager, who gave her a Warm Fuzzy, she had an idea. _You should be careful who you give those too, there’s a shortage._

Chaos. Everybody locked away their Warm Fuzzies, terrified that one day, they’d be all gone. Nobody trusted anybody, they were afraid that somebody would steal the creatures from them. And then the Warm Fuzzies began to die.

In response to a rumor of a nonexistent shortage, a real shortage had been created.

The two children who found the creatures in the first place, however, never stopped sharing them. And everybody else saw that theirs were the only Warm Fuzzies who were not only flourishing, but not going anywhere. They started to share again, let them spread, and the Warm Fuzzies stopped dying.

_Love does no good to anyone locked away and hidden from others. Love must be shared._

The Gophers (Brendon’s glad that it’s not Spencer he’s got a crush on, because Spencer keeps disappearing without Brendon noticing and Brendon doesn’t think that a romantic future is possible with an actual ninja) come out of the Prayer Chapel, holding yarn pom-poms on strings all up their arms. Brendon gets his from a tan-skinned, dark haired guy with a wide face and a wider grin, whose name tag reads _Matt_. As soon as the pom-pom necklace is around his neck, the Gopher pulls him into a hug.

The next however-long is a chaotic swarm of hugs, exchanging the necklaces and hugging each other. Brendon finds himself in front of Mark, who doesn’t have a pom-pom. “They forgot you,” he observes. Mark shrugs.

“You got yours,” he says. “That’s the important thing.”

Brendon shakes his head, taking his own pom-pom from around his neck and placing it around Mark’s. It’s easier this way, anyway, he notes. All the other people, the strings get tangled because they’re trying to switch at the same time. When he lets go of Mark, Mark’s grinning and holding _two_ Warm Fuzzies in his hand. “For seeking nothing in return,” he explains, placing both of them on Brendon’s neck.

They keep getting tangled with each other, now, not just with other people’s. Brendon wonders if this is a metaphor for something. Probably not, it’s just that yarn tangles.

In the end, Brendon manages to have three of them, wrapped up and tangled around each other.

_So fucking glad Ryan intervened._

They all sit down on the Centrum floor, next, and Victoria’s in her chair again, surrounded by all her Gophers. They sing a song for her, a version of Beyonce’s “Formation” but rewritten so that it was about everything the Gophers had to do for the weekend. It’s clever, if off-key and off-beat. It’s not about talent, it’s about how much fun they’re having. And how great Victoria is, Brendon thinks.

At the end of the song, someone Brendon vaguely recognizes as the Happening Coordinator stands up. He talks about the next Happening, how they’re always looking for new Team members. There are applications in their Caritas bags, the reference line already signed. Brendon had seen his, had stared at it for a few minutes before placing it into the “read” pile and deciding to think about that later.

He adds something about something called Celebration Team—they’re the ones who set up the dance party last night, cleaned up _after_ the dance party, and they brought in the daisies and everything this morning. Celebration is for those who can’t come to Happening on Thursday, or can’t make the Team meeting the month before. Brendon thinks it sounds pretty cool.

Next, the Coordinator (Brendon thinks he was called Billy something) brings Gabe, Jenna, and Victoria up with him to stand on one side, and Gerard, Tyler, and Ryland to stand on his other. The Observers hand the Upfront leaders each a pillowcase with a butterfly on it. Brendon recognizes them as the pillowcases he’d signed this morning.

Before the seniors sit back down, though, Gabe says, “Whoa, hang on. We got something for you too.” Victoria hands him a gift bag. “Billie Joe here has been doing Happening for over twenty years,” Gabe says. “And we know that there are a lot of Happenings across the country, a lot of dioceses do one, but I can’t imagine a Happening without you at the helm.”

“Twenty years is a long time to be in charge of a bunch of teenagers,” Jenna adds. “Every time I come back here, I’m worried that you may have given up. That I’ll get here and you won’t be anywhere for me to say hi.”

“You’re always so happy every time we see you,” Victoria adds. “Happy to be here, happy to see us.You do so much for us twice every year. We wanted to say thank you.”

Billie Joe smiles and hugs all of them, then opens up the bag. It’s a ceramic plate with a butterfly painted on in what looks like watercolor.

“It’s always funny to me,” he starts off, “that you are all so worried I won’t be doing another Happening. I say it all the time, I won’t stop doing Happening until two of them are exactly the same. Because a Happening, like a butterfly, is different from all the others.” He turns to the seniors. “Thank you for this.”

Finally, it’s just Victoria and Ryland. Victoria gives him a personalized Gopher pouch, like hers but with Ryland’s initials instead of hers, the thread in red instead of purple.

Gabe instructs them to the outdoor sanctuary, the same place that Brendon and Ryan and Spencer sat at yesterday afternoon. They all head down that way, chatting and laughing with each other. Brendon’s beside Ryan and Spencer, listening to Ryan teasing Spencer for the song.

“There was no twerking,” Ryan says, as if that’s an important factor. “I rate the overall performance a six.”

“Nicki Minaj is the one who’s always twerking,” Spencer counters. “And you’re lucky you missed that performance.”

“There was a Nicki Minaj cover?”

“The Gophers did Starships the year Pete was a Gopher.”

Ryan shudders. Brendon doesn’t know a lot about Nicki Minaj—he knows his parents would scream at him until they were blue in the face if he so much as mentioned her name—but he knows that if Spencer feels the need to use Pete to explain why Ryan was lucky to have missed it, he’s probably twice as lucky. Ryan, at least, probably didn’t come to Happening with a background as radically different as Brendon’s.

When they get to the sanctuary, everybody sits down in benches built out of logs and set firmly in the dirt. It’s a beautiful picture, and Brendon’s not really a photographer but he wishes he had a camera. Or more time to admire it.

“Alright, so now we’re going to have Gerard Way for the World Talk,” Gabe announces, sitting down and letting Gerard up to the front. There’s a podium here, too, set into the ground and looking like it’s made out of driftwood.

“Here we are,” Gerard begins, “the last talk of the last day of Happening. We’ve spent the weekend in a bit of a bubble, isolated from everything. No cell phones, no Twitter, no Facebook. We have no idea what’s going on in the world outside of here. We haven’t heard from our non-Happening friends, from our parents, from our teachers. Homework and school seems like a distant memory.” It’s true, Brendon hasn’t thought about school since he got into his parents’ car.

“But it’s almost over, and we’re going to have to go back into what’s called the ‘real world.’ This, right here, this is what we call the Happening High—we’re at peace, not worried about anything, surrounded by people we love and unpressured by things like deadlines and time constraints and being left behind. But, just like all the kinds of high you’re not meant to be on, this one has a comedown.

“The Happening Funk will probably hit you tomorrow, when you resume your regularly scheduled school week, sitting in History class and staring at the clock while you pretend to listen to your teacher drone on and on about some war or other. It’ll hit you when your friends tell you about the way they spent their weekends, with romantic partners or at parties or even just playing video games and smoking up.

“My first Happening Funk was, by far, the worst. It was October of my freshman year, and I missed the Halloween dance to come to Happening instead. This wasn’t something I really mourned the loss of, I never had any intentions of going to the dance. I would have just hung out in my room all weekend, drawing zombies and watching old monster movies. But when I got back to school on Monday, full of hope and love and contentment, only to find myself surrounded by talk of drugs and sex and questions about why ‘Weirdo Way’ didn’t go to the dance, I crashed hard.

“See, I’ve never really had friends before. Friends don’t come easy to me, they never have. I’m awkward and I don’t know how to talk to people and I have an unfortunate case of crazy eyes when I’m passionate about something. But the people at Happening were so accepting and kind and I wasn’t an outcast here, I had _friends_. And then, I didn’t. In my excitement about having friends, I forgot to get any phone numbers or email addresses or anything. I didn’t have Facebook, so that one was out.

“And it’s hard, to go from an atmosphere like this one, where everyone loves each other and we all get along and everybody can be friends in just two sentences apiece, into the outside world, where people are cruel and you’ve always got four more things to do and you never seem to have enough time and the whole world is breathing down your neck. It’s hard, but it’s not impossible.

“Happening is different. You’re different, while you’re here. I’m sure my brother has been telling anyone who will listen that I’m antisocial and uncomfortable in front of people. But the thing is, all of you aren’t just _people_ , you’re people who care, who call me a friend, who _I_ call friends. This is a place full of love and care and kindness. Out there, out there it’s not.

“Which is why we have to make it that. We have to cling on to these, these feelings of love and peace and hope, and we have to take them out into the real world. We have to see through people’s masks, pray through the social realities of fear and loss, keep the faith through our hard times and lean on Christ when we can’t stand. We have to seek the grace of God, be apostles through love rather than hate, and we have to share our warm fuzzies with everyone we come across.

“This is Happening, and it’s already happened to you. Be the one who helps it happen to someone else. Amen.”

* * *

Back in the Centrum, they all line up by small group. Brendon’s told there’s a closing worship service coming next, and then that’s it. The envelopes from the start of the weekend are passed out, the ones with the phones and iPods and watches. Brendon stares down at it, and it really cements it into his head. Happening is over.

Brendon’s not ready for it to end.

They march to the Talk Room, one group after the other, and everybody starts singing before they’re actually inside. Brendon doesn’t know the song, so he doesn’t sing along, but he gets the important lines of the verse. _We will walk with each other…Together we’ll spread the news that God is in our land…And they’ll know we are Christians by our love._

Once inside, Brendon notices three things at once. First, the projection screen and makeshift altar in front of the door. Second, there are carpet squares tightly grouped together—some to the right of the door, and some on the other side of the aforementioned altar. Brendon takes the next open spot and finds himself sandwiched in between Dallon and Melanie. Lastly, he notices the chairs to the right of the carpet squares—chairs filled with adults Brendon hasn’t seen. He sees his parents in the crowd and realizes, _they’re going to know_. It solves one problem, even if it causes a thousand more. The song is on the projector screen, and Brendon sings along to avoid thinking about the imminence of his parents finding out how badly they fucked up.

Immediately following the song about love, the band rolls right into another song, as the last of the Team files in. Brendon can’t stop looking at his parents, how they’re reacting to the rowdy teenagers clapping and dancing to songs that aren’t hymns. There’s a lot of confusion on their faces, and a little bit of disapproval. Brendon closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, looks to Ryan, and sees that he’s already watching him carefully. When Ryan notices Brendon looking his way, he sends a reassureing smile. Brendon’s panic slips away, even as he realizes that he may not get the chance to come back to Happening.

When the songs are over, Mark steps out from behind the makeshift altar. He’s wearing his Happening t-shirt and jeans, same as all day, but he’s got a sash-thing around his shoulders, too. It’s brightly colored, with butterflies fluttering down at the bottom. Just like last night, the service is on the projector screen and easy to follow. There’s only the verse from Romans, as a reading, and the Gospel reading. After the readings, Mark says, “I would like to invite any of our participants to stand up and speak about your weekend, if you wish.”

A lot of people stand up, just Candidates at first, until Patrick stands up. Brendon spends the entire time working up the courage to say something himself—there’s a good chance that his parents won’t let him come back already, and Brendon wants to make sure that everybody knows exactly how grateful he is that he was here at all. When Mikey sits down after saying, “I came in, unsure of what exactly it was that made my brother love this place so much. But after seeing the way that everybody grows so close, so quickly, and how fast you make a hundred new friends, I really can’t say I blame him,” Brendon stands up, heart in his throat.

“I didn’t want to come here,” he says. “I got here angry, and scared. I’m from a church that has a very strict set of rules, rules that never really allowed me to be myself. It made me unsure of where I stood in my faith. But being here, seeing a new side to religion that my old church didn’t really show, it’s a lot easier to believe in a God who loves you for who you are, no matter who that is. And I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who made this experience what it was for me.” He didn’t say he was gay, he didn’t say he was _still_ gay, but he hopes he got his point across to his parents.

A few more people stand up and speak, until most everybody has said something, and a silence stretches on for an almost awkward amount of time. Mark stands back up and moves on.

There are a handful of necklaces, necklaces Brendon’s seen on some of the Team members. A golden-colored cross that kind of looks like a waffle on a black string. Mark explains that it’s a Jerusalem cross, a large cross with smaller crosses in each corner, representing Christ in each corner of the world. It was chosen as the cross to be passed out at Happening, because the emotions—the love and peace and happiness—experienced at Happening should be experienced universally, in all corners of the world. Mark says a blessing over the crosses and calls each Candidate up, slips it over their necks and hugs each one of them, then they hug Gabe, Victoria, and Jenna. Brendon’s towards the end, because Mark’s calling alphabetically by last name. When it is his turn, he picks his way through everybody sitting on the ground in front of him, and very determinedly does not look at his parents.

Mark slips the cross around his neck, and pulls him in for a hug. Brendon whispers, “Thank you,” and even though he doesn’t say for what, he thinks Mark understands anyway. Brendon moves on, hugs Gabe, Victoria, and Jenna, and thanks them all, too. He can feel, more than the rest, his parents’ eyes on him, but he still doesn’t look their way. This weekend is about the friends he’s made, not about what awaits him at home. He’s done worrying about what happens at home—he just wants to enjoy the rest of Happening.

The service continues, once the last cross is given, with the Eucharist. Brendon pays attention, follows along, does not look at his parents. He keeps looking back at Ryan, though, who’s sometimes looking at him, and sometimes looking at Spencer. Spencer, who’s sitting with Brendon’s group. When Ryan’s looking at Spencer, he seems to be conversing with his eyebrows, and Brendon thinks it might be about him.

After the Eucharist, they sing a song called “Prince of Peace.” They’ve already done it this weekend, so Brendon kind of knows how it goes. What he doesn’t expect, though, is for the males on the Team to start tugging the male Candidates to stand in an awkward line around the edge of the room, creating an all male kick-line, kicking at the same time the girls clap. It’s confusing, but it’s fun, sandwiched in between Josh Dun and Mikey Way. He almost falls over a couple times, but Josh tightens an arm around him each time to keep him upright.

The song ends, and Mark says, “The Peace of the Lord be always with you,” and Brendon remembers from last night that the response is, “And also with you,” even if he can’t see the screen anymore. There’s a lot of hugging that follows, and Brendon’s thanking everyone he hugs, even if he hasn’t actually met them formally, and it feels like he hugs Ryan just a little too long, but he owes Ryan _so much_ for getting him involved in this. Brendon doesn’t know how long the hugging goes on for, but eventually the Spanish song, “Montaña,” starts to play, and Brendon can’t remember any of the words, and he can’t seem to escape the mass of people to get the screen into his line of sight, but he remembers some of the motions, and he just watches Gabe give his heart and soul to the song.

At the end, Mark grandly states, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord, allelujah, allelujah.”

A few people mutter, “Thanks be to God, allelujah, allelujah,” and that’s it. Candidates start going to their parents, Team members start to disperse. Sure, most of them are still talking to each other, but people are starting to leave.

Brendon finds Ryan and Spencer, one last time. “So, I don’t know if my parents are going to let me see you again,” he mutters, glancing back at them. They don’t seem to know where he is. “They, uh, probably didn’t like what I said, earlier.”

Ryan grins at him. “I liked what you said earlier,” he says, and Brendon’s heart stutters.

“Yeah, so did I,” he says, much more smoothly than he thought he’d be capable of. “I thought it was fitting.”

Spencer places a hand on Brendon’s shoulder, and it’s more comforting than Brendon expects. “If they don’t ship you off to the farm, I’m sure my mom won’t mind you coming to church with us. Or even just coming ‘round on Saturdays to play video games.” The idea of being shipped off to the farm should terrify Brendon, but it doesn’t.

“I’m totally just going to spend the _whole_ weekend at your house, Spencer Smith,” Brendon says, fluttering his eyelashes dramatically. “And I want more of your mom’s brownies. _Every day_.”

“And here I thought you only liked me for my looks,” Spencer says, clutching his chest.

“He’s right, though,” Ryan says with a laugh. “You should come by, sometime.”

Brendon smiles, glancing back at his parents. They appear to have found their way to Mark, and look like they’re interrogating him. “I’ll try,” he says. “I should go save him, though, right?”

Ryan and Spencer each pull Brendon into one last hug, before they both say they’ve got to go, too. Brendon goes over to his parents, gives them both a hug, gives Mark one last hug, then they’re out the door.

* * *

The second the door closes behind Brendon’s dad, Brendon tenses up. He’d left the suitcase in the car, but he’s got the Carita bag in one hand and his iPod in the other. He waits, though, before going upstairs to play the CDs in the bag, to go through the notes again, to do _anything_. He’s not even sure he wants to sit down for this. He just knows he doesn’t want to let go of his Caritas.

“How was your weekend, hon?” his mom asks. Brendon doesn’t look at her, because he’d seen her reflection in the rearview on the way home. He knows that, even though she sounds normal, if he looks at her, he’ll see fear, discomfort, and sadness on her face.

“Better than I expected,” he says honestly. “I had a lot of fun.” He turns around, stares at the wall just to the left of the front door. “There was one guy, Pete, and it was like everything he did was just for show.” _And his boyfriend, Patrick, was the total opposite, hiding from everyone’s attention._ “He fell during one of the Energizers, there was so much flailing.”

“Did you…learn anything?” his mom tries. Brendon still doesn’t look at her, but he chances a look at his dad. His dad, who’s staring at the floor, studiously ignoring him.

Brendon sighs, sits down on the couch, puts his iPod on the coffee table. He’s still clutching the Caritas bag. “Quite a bit, actually, yeah.”

* * *

Brendon doesn’t mean to take Spencer up on the whole _come say hi!_ thing quite so quickly, but he doesn’t feel like he has a lot of options, which is why he knocks on the front door Monday after school.

All in all, the conversation with his parents hadn’t gone terribly. Brendon knows this, knows it could have been worse. Knows he really could have been sent off to a farm, or at least the unforgiving camps that Ryan had gotten them to avoid. He hasn’t even been kicked out, technically.

“They can’t do that,” Ryan says, as soon as Brendon finishes explaining.

“No, it’s fine,” Brendon tries. “It’s not a huge deal, it’s—“

“You’re _fifteen_ ,” Ryan points out. “You can’t even legally get a job, how the _hell_ are you supposed to—“ He cuts himself off when Spencer nudges him with his shoulder, stares at Spencer for a couple minutes. Brendon thinks that it’s going to be weird, watching them silenly communicate like that. Spencer leaves the room, and Brendon’s nervous.

“They’re right, though,” Brendon whispers, drawing his knees to his chest. “Forget about them for a minute. I can’t live in a house where being gay is wrong, Ryan. I’ve just spent a weekend learning about acceptance and a kind of faith that is exactly what you’re comfortable with. I can’t live with people who can’t accept that.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being gay, Brendon,” Ryan assures him, sitting beside him.

Brendon shakes his head, because that isn’t the point, and he _knows_ that, now, anyway. “No, I know. But my parents think there is, which means that, in their house, it _is_ wrong.” He picks at a hole in the knee of his jeans. “It’s a Mormon household. I don’t think any of us are comfortable with me being there, if I’m not Mormon. It’s just…I can’t blame them, not if I feel the same way.”

“They can’t kick you out because you don’t believe the same things as them,” Ryan argues.

“They’re not _kicking me out_ ,” Brendon stresses, because they _aren’t_. “I’m allowed to _stay_ , if I can’t go anywhere else. This wasn’t me asking for money, or a place to stay. I’m allowed to go back there, I’m allowed to sleep in my own bed. We just all think it’s for the best if I don’t.”

Spencer comes back, then. “So I caught the back end of that,” he admits. “And while I recognize you’re not asking for a place to stay, I don’t think my mother is planning on letting you leave.”

“He does have to get his things, at least,” Ryan points out, at the same time Brendon says, “I can be bribed with brownies.”

Spencer leans against the doorframe. “No brownies, at the moment, but she did just take some cookies out of the oven for the twins’ bake sale tomorrow.”

* * *

It takes some settling in before Brendon really gets used to living with the Smiths. Technically, he still lives with his parents—any mail gets sent there, and any forms have to be signed by them. Ms. Ginger is awesome, and makes the best food _ever_ —seriously, the brownies were just the tip of the awesome iceberg of baked goods that she’s capable of—and she talked to Brendon’s parents, worked out this arrangement.

Crystal and Jackie, the twins, are confusing—at least, until Brendon figures out the pattern. When he first meets them, they giggled wildly until Brendon scuttled out of the room. After that, they’re constantly bouncing between being weird like middle school girls tend to be, and being the kind of weird that makes Brendon uncomfortable. After a couple weeks, he figures out that they’re only the second kind of weird when Ryan’s in the room, and Ryan’s always flushed some shade of pink. Brendon asks him about it, one day when they’re on the floor in Brendon’s room, listening to music. Which is how Brendon ends up with his very first boyfriend.

It’s totally not weird that his boyfriend’s adoptive brother’s family basically adopted Brendon, it’s _not._

* * *

Brendon hadn’t realized that Ryan was a junior, a year older than him and Spencer, until the day that Ryan got the email.

“They want me to be Chaplain.”

Spencer hums, then he blows Brendon up. Brendon curses, then pauses the game.

“You’ll be a great Chaplain,” Brendon says supportively, because he’s a supportive boyfriend.

Spencer looks over at Ryan, who’s not looking at either of them. He’s still staring at the email. “You’d be observing Tyler,” he points out, not like it’s a bad thing. Brendon didn’t really get the chance to get to know Tyler that well, but it seems like he’ll be a good Chaplain to observe. “You’re allowed to say no,” Spencer adds, because Ryan doesn’t seem to be able to comprehend that they wanted _him._

Ryan nods, closes his laptop, and says, “I know I am.”

The next day, all three of them get an email that says the Upfront leaders for Happening #71 will be Pete Wentz, as Rector; Patrick Stump, as Head Gopher; and Ryan Ross, and Chaplain. Brendon’s not-so-secretly pleased. His Team application is filled out, signed, and ready to be sent in less than two days later.

Happening #70 is going to _rock._ Brendon knows this, because he’s not going to spend the first half of it thinking it’s going to _suck_.

Maybe Ryan should have stayed out of it, maybe he shouldn’t have butted in like it was any of his business. But Brendon got friends, a boyfriend, and a better grip on his faith out of the deal, so Ryan definitely did the right thing, even if it’s morally reprehensible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, it feels like it's been forever since I've posted. What's that? _February 15th?_ Oh shit. Honestly, I have no excuse.
> 
> Okay, so: there will be an epilogue sort of thing--Happening 70, it'll be a crash course in Brendon's first Happening on Team. It's...basically not written yet. It'll be a while. I'm pretty sure it'll be really long, though, so you'll have that to look forward to.
> 
> Obviously, my first Happening was nothing like Brendon's. I grew up in this church, I grew up going to whatever youth events I could get an application for. This was simultaneously the easiest story I've ever written and the hardest. Easiest, because it's based on real-life events. Hardest, because...well, I've never been through a religious crisis. I'm probably more like David Boyd, who was so used to the center that he was up and at 'em before Gabe even had to start shouting.
> 
> If anyone wants pictures of the cross or the shirt, or anything else from Happening that I may still be hanging on to, let me know and I'll post them on my tumblr.


	9. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the point of this is really to a) highlight the differences between being a Candidate and a Team Member, b) show that there are still going to be points where Brendon's uncomfortable, and c) give me a chance to let Brendon give his own Talk. This starts with the Team Meeting, about a month before actual Happening, and then there's a little bit in between the two, and then Friday before the Candidates arrive. Once the Candidates arrive, there's really not a lot that changes, so I didn't write as much.
> 
> Why is this so much longer? Who knows! I don't! I had fun. It got away from me. Oh well.

Brendon hadn’t thought, when Ryan and Spencer said _Team meeting_ , that it would be quite like this. He should have, because he hadn’t expected Happening to be the way it was, but Brendon was honestly just expecting to get to the church (two hours away from home, by the way), get his Team position, and maybe do a couple Team-bonding exercises or something. What he was _not_ expecting was to check in, color butterfly placemats, and reacquaint himself with everybody again.

“Beebo!” Gabe exclaims, sitting himself down of Brendon’s own chair, pushing Brendon over to make room. “Glad to see you came back.”

“I immediately regret this decision,” Brendon replies. He hears Ryan snort from Gabe’s other side, but he makes no move to get Gabe to leave. _Traitor._

“I tend to have that effect,” Gabe agrees. “Have you fine gentlemen seen Bilvy yet?”

“He’s probably not here yet,” Spencer points out. “He’s from the other side of the diocese.”

Gabe seems to wilt, but he recovers quickly. “I concede to your logic, Smith,” he says, standing up. Brendon scoots back over, hooking his feet around the legs of the chair. He won’t be moved so easily next time. “By the way, congratulations, Ryan,” Gabe adds. “I promise, it’s not quite so terrifying as it seems.”

* * *

While Brendon still wasn’t allowed his phone, they are all allowed watches, and there’s a clock on the wall that’s entirely uncovered. About twenty minutes of coloring butterflies later, they gather in the open space on the other side of the room and sing a couple songs, old ones that Brendon already knows. Immediately following, there are some games, weird ones Brendon doesn’t understand completely but he has fun anyway.

After that, they get into a circle around the space and are handed thick packets of paper with their names on it. Billie Joe is explaining the contents, the spreadsheet Ryland put together telling who’s bringing what, the positions page, the schedule (there’s an actual _schedule_ for the weekend, with _times_ and everything). He also explains Caritas, how you aren’t really supposed to spend a whole lot of actual _money_ on them, and they’re supposed to take actual time to put together. He explains personal Caritas, that it doesn’t just have to be a letter, but anything the other person would be touched by. This is good news for Brendon, because he’s not very good at putting words to his thoughts and a letter would not be enough to express his gratitude to Spencer and Ryan.

Brendon flips to the assignment page and looks for his name, finding it under _Rector’s Gopher_. His is the only name there, and he remembers Nate at last Happening, looking harassed and like the life had been drained out of him. Spencer leans over and whispers a reassuring, “It’s just Gerard, you’ll be fine,” and Brendon nods. Nate’s problem was that he had to spend the whole weekend with Gabe, and Gabe is crazy. Brendon doesn’t really know Gerard that well, but he knows that nobody could possibly be worse than Gabe.

“Is it a good idea, though?” he asks. “I mean, I don’t really know anything about what’s going on, shouldn’t—”

“They wouldn’t have assigned it to you if they didn’t think you capable,” Ryan points out. “But if you really don’t want to do it, you can talk to Billie Joe. He’ll find something else for you.”

It’s not that Brendon doesn’t _want_ to, it’s that he’s _scared_. He’s sure he’d be scared no matter what position he got, but he was scared last Happening too. And it was the best choice he hadn’t made to go to Happening anyway, so maybe this will be another great choice he never made (he definitely had not requested to be Rector’s Gopher on his application, he’d said _Small Group Gopher_ and _Skit Gopher_ and _Placemats/Caritas_ because Ryan had explained that one and it seemed like the easiest one).

“No, I want to,” he says.

* * *

The next month is a mess _._ Between school, band, and choir, Brendon has trouble finding time to work on his Caritas—he knows he’s doing a CD, but finding the right mix is _hard_. He ends up asking Google a good way to order a mixtape and he ends up with a CNN article about someone named Lin Manuel Miranda and his Twitter. There’s good advice, but the advice is for a love thing, which isn’t what he’s going for (he bookmarks the page anyway, because Ryan, but oh well). He studies the tweets a little more, then decides that the advice is still usable.

He also listens to the mixes he got in October. Ryan’s was full of pop music, Patrick’s full of a bit of everything—some pop, but also some rock and punk and metal and even some rap. William’s was actually a Happening mix—some of the songs they sang and some of the songs they did Energizers to. Brendon thinks he likes Patrick’s idea the best.

The personal Caritas are the hardest, because he knows he has to write one for Ryan and Spencer, but he wants to write one for Gabe and Pete and William and Patrick and Tyler and…everyone, really, if he’s being honest with himself. But he knows he doesn’t have the time for that many, not since he’s also helping Ryan with Spencer’s placemat and helping Spencer with _Ryan’s_ placemat and it’s possible that Brendon underestimated how much work this would take.

“All three of us can work together on Caritas,” Spencer points out, watching Brendon crumple another list of songs at the dining room table. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

“I…” Brendon falters. He knows that, and he knows that Spencer and Ryan were planning on doing that this time, anyway. “It’s just, everything’s different now, I guess,” he says, leaning back in the chair. “I mean, Happening _literally_ changed my life, you know?”

“None of this is an obligation,” Spencer stresses. “Don’t feel like it is.”

“No, I know that, it’s just…I want to stress how much this meant to me,” Brendon tries again. “To _me_ , personally. Because what if there’s another person, going in just like I did? Scared to death and sure as hell it’s going to be awful. You and Ryan, William, Gabe, Pete, Tyler…You all helped me figure out that it wasn’t a bad thing, but at the same time…”

“None of us were kicked out of the house by our Mormon parents because we’re gay?” Spencer finished for him. Brendon doesn’t feel like reminding Spencer he wasn’t _kicked out_ , not after he tried to go talk to his brother last week and wasn’t allowed past the front door—and Scott hadn’t wanted to talk to him anyway.

“Something like that,” he says instead.

“Well, in that case,” Spencer says, sitting up a bit straighter in his chair, “Let me tell you about the best Happening Mix I’ve ever gotten.”

* * *

The paper Brendon bought from the Walgreens two blocks away from the school is brightly colored and just a bit ridiculous looking. Pete will love it, if nobody else does. Brendon had also, just to be funny, bought a pack of sparkly gel pens. He’d told himself that he’ll give them to the twins when he’s done, but he likes the way they write, so he might just keep them for himself.

He’s gotten it narrowed down: Ryan and Spencer, because they’re his friends in the real world as well as from Happening, and Brendon wouldn’t have gone to Happening in the first place without Ryan and he sure as hell wouldn’t have survived after Happening without Spencer and his family. William, because he was the first person at Happening he met, who told him to give the weekend a chance. Pete and Patrick, because while it was Ash’s talk that outright said that the church didn’t frown on homosexuality, it was the two of them that really made the point hit home. Also, Pete’s eccentric tendencies actually helped take Brendon’s mind off his problems. He never felt particularly worried around Pete, just incredibly confused. Tyler, because Tyler gave Brendon a goal for the weekend that wasn’t _have fun_ or _grow closer to God_ but was much more attainable that Friday night— _you’ll be more comfortable with your spirituality._ Tyler made it all less scary, even if only marginally.

Lastly, he wanted to make one for Mark, because Mark was everything Brendon wasn’t expecting from a spiritual director, but was also perfect for the role. He was understanding, not overbearing, funny, and, most importantly, rather than leading Brendon to any spiritual conclusions, let Brendon come to them himself.

He has the names all written down, at least. He has no idea what to say from there, but he figures that it’s as good a place as any to start.

* * *

Placemats is an adventure all on its own. Spencer’s parents are at some function for the twins, so the three of them have the house to themselves. Spencer and Brendon are in the dining room, working on Ryan’s placemat, while Ryan’s somewhere else, finishing up his personal Caritas.

“We have to include the pretentious douchebag trait somewhere,” Brendon points out, tapping his fingers on the table.

Spencer snorts. “You know, I don’t think you’re supposed to call him a pretentious douchebag, as his boyfriend.”

“I do it with love,” Brendon counters, fluttering his eyelashes. “So many subtitles, Spence. He reads so many books. Why does he want to read his movies?”

“He’ll be over it by May,” Spencer assures him. “And then back to it in August. It’s a vicious cycle.” He studies the placemat curiously. “We can put a TV in this corner,” he allows. “Put a mime and the Eiffel Tower so he’ll know it’s French.”

Brendon grins, then grabs a pencil and sketches it out.

* * *

Ryan and Spencer trade places, when Ryan’s placemat is all done. It’s a lot harder for Brendon to focus on anything to do with Spencer when Ryan’s sitting so close, their knees pressed together. Brendon takes a drink of his water to recollect himself as Ryan writes Spencer’s name in the center of the placemat.

“You’re quiet,” Ryan observes, touching up the letters. He’s going for a cool font, the kind with the feet on the letters. “Like, a different kind of quiet than usual. What’s up?”

Brendon’s not usually quiet at all, so he doesn’t really know what Ryan’s talking about. But at the same time, he kind of does.

Because while it’s true that Brendon’s having some trouble focusing because of Ryan’s proximity, it’s also just weird to him. Placemats is something that personal friends usually get first dibs on. It’s like, if you actually, physically know the person that’s getting the placemat, you want to do it yourself. And it’s weird that Brendon knows two people well enough to be doing _two_ placemats, even though half a year ago…

“I didn’t know either of you six months ago,” Brendon says finally. “It’s just weird how much has changed since then.”

“You hated me six months ago, actually,” Ryan points out. “Either way though, a lot’s changed.”

“Yeah, well, in my defense,” Brendon starts, drawing a drumset in the top left corner of the placemat, “you did get involved in my personal business without my invitation.”

“I did,” Ryan agrees. He doesn’t say anything else, but finishes the touch-ups to Spencer’s name. It’s funny to Brendon, how hard Ryan worked on Spencer’s name, when Spencer just wrote Ryan’s like normal.

“You’re something of an asshole, Ryan Ross,” Brendon says, adding another cymbal to the drumset. It’s bordering on ridiculous, how many pieces it has.

* * *

Brendon, Spencer, and Ryan have papers to excuse them from school for Thursday and Friday. Brendon isn’t sure if the school will accept them as viable excuses, but the other two assure him that it’s fine. “Did this last time, remember?” And so, Thursday morning, they load their bags into Spencer’s mom’s car. They don’t have to leave that early, so they go to school for the first half of the day and get checked out at about 11:30.

This time, the drive is a lot less terrifying to Brendon. He already knows what to expect, he’s in a car with his two best friends, and, most importantly, he wants to be in the car this time. He wants to be going to Happening, he _wants_ to isolate himself from the rest of the world this weekend.

Check in is in the Talk Room this time, instead of on the other side of the field. Pete’s not wandering around with dozens of nametags (rather just holding a box full of them), and there are a few people just lounging around the room, just talking. Ryland, Pete, and Breezy are at the check-in table, and Patrick’s nearby, strumming something out on a guitar. They get a nametag from Pete, their rooming arrangement from Ryland, and give their Caritas and placemats to Breezy. Breezy hands the Caritas to Ash, standing behind her, and Ash goes into one of the rooms beyond the bathrooms to put them away.

“Dinner’s at 6, team meeting at 8:07,” Ryland reminds them, and they make their way to the cabins.

“No navy blue,” Pete calls after them, causing Brendon to trip.

Brendon hears Patrick chastise him as the door swings shut (“Don’t be a butt, Wentz.”) and Spencer pats his shoulder sympathetically. “If the question you’re asking yourself is, _is it that obvious_ ,”—it was—“then I can assure you the answer is no.”

“Stop talking,” Ryan mutters, flushed red on Brendon’s other side.

“What _was_ painfully obvious was Ryan’s crush on ‘this kid Brendon, guys, I swear he’s gonna be like, _super_ cool, I am just _so_ glad he’s coming, I’m _worried_ about him,’”

“Spencer, I will peel your skin off while you sleep,” Ryan threatens.

“That’s not very Christian of you,” Brendon points out with a grin. He wraps his arms around Ryan in a sideways hug. Ryan’s duffel gets in the way, makes it awkward, but Brendon wasn’t going for the most sincere hug anyway. “If it makes you feel any better, I would totally kiss you if we were allowed to make navy blue.”

Ryan shoves him gently. Brendon staggers exaggeratedly into Spencer, who steadies him.

“Spencer, he rejects my love,” Brendon laments.

“Right, this Happening, you are not allowed to talk to Pete,” Spencer declares.

* * *

The first thing Brendon does, after settling into his new cabin space, is go looking for Gerard. Instead, he finds Gabe.

“Beebo!” Gabe exclaims from near the firepit. Before Brendon can make his escape, Gabe’s up and flinging an arm around Brendon’s shoulders. “This month has been good to you, I see.”

“I think you’re blocking his oxygen supply,” William calls from where he’s sprawled out on a bench, but he makes no further move to help Brendon. “Let him breathe, Gabe.”

“No,” Gabe argues, pulling Brendon closer. Now Brendon really can’t breathe, and the little wooden fence around the perimeter of the firepit is digging uncomfortably into his hip.

“Gabe, let go of Gerard’s Gopher,” Victoria say, walking up to the two (presumably from the path). “He’s going to need him.”

“Yeah, but not until after dinner at the earliest,” Gabe argues, but he does loosen his grip on Brendon enough that he can move away. He makes his way further into the lion’s den so he can talk to William.

“Here I was expecting you to run in the opposite direction,” William observes, sitting up.

Brendon shrugs. “I’m stuck here with him all weekend. May as well establish early on I’m not afraid of him. It’ll lose its fun.”

William sighs. “Oh, how I wish Gabe worked like that.” Brendon thinks maybe there’s still time to run. “Heard you live with Spencer and Ryan, now.”

Brendon nods. He knows that Spencer and Ryan are both friends with William on Facebook, so it’s no surprise that William can work that out from both their walls.

“Yeah, a lot happened after last Happening,” Brendon says, propping his feet on the bench in front of him.

“Look, I know that the obvious person people will tell you to go to if you need to is Mark,” William starts, “but in case you hadn’t noticed, Mark’s a priest. And so he has a habit of saying a lot of the annoying things priests say, like ‘God works in mysterious ways’ and ‘God’s plan is often unclear to us until it is over.’ So if you ever need to talk _without_ all that, if you need to just vent, then I’m sure anybody else here would be more than willing to listen.”

“Is there any reason in particular why you weren’t chosen for Chaplain?” Brendon asks, before he can stop himself. “You’d have been very good at it.”

“Oh, I’m Methodist.”

Brendon blinks. He doesn’t know what that means, or why it’s important.

“Chaplain and Rector—especially Chaplain—do so much corresponding with the Spiritual Director, that it’s really for the best if they’re Episcopalian,” William explains. “That way, Mark, or whoever the Spiritual Director is, can just use all the weird, Episcopalian words that I honestly have no idea what they mean. They don’t have to translate, and it saves time.”

“I’m glad that makes sense,” Brendon nods, “because otherwise I think that would have made me angry.”

William nods understandingly. “Yeah, I thought it sounded awful exclusive, too, at first. And then I went to talk to Mark while Jenna was still Observing and I caught the back end of their conversation.”

“How much did you understand?” Brendon asks, curious. He doesn’t really know what ‘weird, Episcopalian words’ meant.

“I caught ‘goodbye,’” William offers with a grin. “The rest of it went right over my head.”

* * *

Dinner is a choose-your-own-seat adventure tonight. Ryan says it’s because the placemats don’t have names yet, and they don’t want to waste them anyway. There’s pepperoni pizza on the tables, but Brendon’s still vegetarian, so he just wants cheese.

“Uh, question,” he asks, as he, Ryan, and Spencer sit down at a table already occupied with Josh, from Brendon’s small group last Happening, and Lauren, who Brendon only talked to a couple times but remembers she was really cool.

“I’ll take you,” Spencer offers. “I wanna snag some of the creamers, anyway.”

“What is with the creamers?” Lauren demands, placing her hands on the table in a way that says she’d totally be slamming them if they weren’t right by the wall (Brendon remembers being told it’s just a partition, and there’s another group on the other side of it so please be considerate).

Brendon must admit, he’s curious, too, but he’s starving, and figures that Spencer can explain.

“The dining hall has flavored creamers, the Talk Room does not.” Brendon likes Spencer, he doesn’t make him ask questions.

“I feel like this isn’t as big a deal as everybody makes it seem,” Brendon points out, remembering Gabe and Nate last Happening.

“Yeah, well,” Spencer shrugs. “You don’t drink coffee.” It’s true, Brendon never really warmed up to it. It’s too bitter—Brendon likes things sweet, like hot cocoa.

* * *

The meeting is pretty basic, going over rules and how to interact with the Candidates. After hearing some of the things Billie Joe warns against, Brendon thinks it may be time to ask Pete and Gabe why they ignored him.

Billie Joe makes sure to remind everyone that some of the Candidates may be uncomfortable, may not be used to the hugging and the swaying and the weird all-male kick line that Brendon was, once again, dragged into and during which, once again, he almost fell over. Be mindful of those people, let them get used to Happening on their own terms.

Brendon remembers being that Candidate, the one who was scared and uncomfortable and not used to the physical contact.

Afterwards, they have a nighttime service that Mark calls “Compline,” and Brendon himself can only describe as a short mini-service without Communion. It’s kind of like Morning Prayer, which he got to experience a few weeks ago when the priest at his new church went on vacation.

They have a bit of free time, after that, but Brendon decides to go ahead and talk to Gerard now, so he doesn’t have to worry about finding him later. Gerard’s talking to Pete, over in the corner near the bar. Brendon doesn’t understand _why_ there’s a bar in here, but the interior decoration of the Talk Room is hardly the point of anything.

Gerard sees him before he gets to say hi, and he smiles. “Brendon, hey!”

Pete’s not really paying attention, Brendon notices, he’s busy writing something down in a massive binder stuffed with papers, set on the counter.

“Yeah, I just, wanted to come talk to you now, since I know where you are right now.”

“Heard you found Gabe earlier,” Pete pipes up, setting down his pen.

Brendon shrugs. “More like I passed by where Gabe was and was held against my will.”

Gerard smiles, shaking his head. “Gabe was an interesting one to Observe, I’ll give him that. He was a good, though. Anyway, you remember what your small group Gopher did last Happening?”

Brendon nods. “Spencer brought us snacks.”

Pete lights up, but before he can say anything, Gerard turns to him and says, “No. Write that down, no.” Pete writes something, but he doesn’t deflate like Brendon would have expected. Brendon can kind of see what Pete writes down, but it looks like it says _Gerard: Pete no. Pete: Pete YES._ Now that Brendon thinks about it, that’s probably what it actually does say.

Gerard can also see what Pete’s writing, but he just sighs and turns back to Brendon. “He also brought the group what you needed. The magazines and markers for the collage, the Bibles and verses for the skits, and he passed out your group’s Caritas.”

“He did a lot of vanishing,” Brendon recalls. “I’m not a ninja, so I hope you aren’t counting on that.”

Gerard laughs. “No, please don’t just disappear on me. I’m not asking you to know what I need done and have it done before I ask. I’m just asking you to do what I ask at all.”

“Gerard’s awkward asking for help,” Pete adds. Brendon thinks he’s drawing a flower. “So you’ll have it easier than Nate, at least.” He looks up. “I’m gonna go serenade Patrick from the doorway into the Gopher Hole, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“So will it just be running around, taking things to other people?” Brendon asks, leaning against the counter where Pete had just been.

Gerard nods. “That and finding people to ask them questions. I know Gabe did use Nate to go steal him snacks out of the Gopher Hole, but I won’t do that. Mainly because I’m allowed into the Gopher Hole without strict supervision from Victoria.”

“Victoria isn’t Head Gopher anymore,” Brendon points out.

“Exactly,” Gerard grins. “There’s gonna be a period of time tomorrow where the groups work on various things—Energizers and skits and whatnot. That’s really all I’ll need from you before the Candidates get here. Other than that, it’s up to you.”

* * *

Brendon finds Spencer, Ryan, and someone he remembers as being named Jon on the dock over the lake. He sits down between Ryan and Jon, taking off his shoes so he can dip his toes in the water. It’s freezing.

“Still nervous about being Gerard’s Gopher?” Ryan asks, leaning his head on Brendon’s shoulder. Brendon thinks it must be awkward for him, because Ryan’s the taller one.

“Little bit,” Brendon admits. “But mostly because I don’t know my way around that well.” He catches sight of a binder, similar to Pete’s but considerably smaller, just sitting behind Ryan. “What’s with the notebooks?”

Ryan sits up, looks behind him. “What? Oh. That’s for my notes.”

“Wow, Ryan, phenomenally helpful,” Jon says, applauding slowly. Spencer snorts. Brendon thinks he could really like Jon. Jon might be his favorite.

“Since I’m Observing Tyler,” Ryan tries again. “I’m just writing down if there’s anything Chaplain specific I’m supposed to do. I think I’ve written the word _pray_ at least fifty times.”

“Funny, because I’m pretty sure the Chaplain was the spiritual backbone,” Brendon says, putting his hands behind him so he can lean back. “At least, that’s what Gabe said when he introduced Jenna last time.”

“I’m surprised you remember that,” Spencer admits. “You were so angry Friday night.”

“Gabe’s hard to forget.”

There’s a chorus of _yeah_ s, following that statement.

“At some point, you’ve got to write _talk to Spiritual Director,_ ” Jon points out.

Ryan nods. “And then, immediately after, _pray with Spiritual Director_. Tyler said that tomorrow we talk with the Small Group leaders. And then we pray with them.”

Brendon goes to place a comforting hand on Ryan’s shoulder, then freezes. “Oh no.”

“What?”

“Pete’s Observing Gerard.” He knew this, and that’s why he didn’t question it when Pete was talking to Gerard earlier, but realistically, this means that where Gerard goes, Pete will go. And where Gerard is, Brendon is supposed to also go.

Jon pulls Brendon into a hug, causing Brendon to lose his balance and fall further into the embrace. “Look at it this way,” he says soothingly. “It’s not Gabe.”

“Jon, why are you petting my boyfriend like a cat?”

* * *

The next morning, at breakfast, Patrick sits down beside Brendon, taking the last open seat at the table. Pete falls to his knees dramatically.

“Patrick, why hast thou forsaken me?” he laments.

Patrick just sighs and says, “Partition.” Pete stands up, pouting, but he doesn’t say anything else.

“Do you all have to carry the notebooks everywhere you go?” Brendon asks. Patrick’s is thicker than Ryan’s, but still not as thick as Pete’s. Patrick shrugs.

“Not technically. But it’s easier for me and Ryan, at least, to bring it everywhere than to have to keep going back to the cabin space for it. Pete’s is so heavy that it might be easier to just go back for it, but he likes having the pen and paper on hand at all times. I feel bad for whoever inherits it from him. It’ll be covered in doodles and bad poetry.”

“Pete’s not a _bad_ poet,” argues someone Brendon actually doesn’t recognize. His nametag reads _Andy._ “He just takes himself too seriously.”

Patrick shakes his head. “I never said he was a bad poet. But if you think that his scrawlings in the margins of notebooks are going to reflect his actual talent, you are so painfully wrong. The margins all say stupid things, like _I’ll sport my brand new fashion of waking up with pants on at four in the afternoon_ and _if you were on fire I wouldn’t pee on you to put you out_.”

“One of those sounds like a college student and the other one sounds petty,” Brendon observes.

“Petty college student,” says Josh Dun, who Brendon almost didn’t recognize. His hair, which had been pink, is now a vivid yellow.

“My question is, would he pee on this theoretical person if they _weren’t_ on fire, just to pee on them?” asks Max, who Brendon also barely recognizes. He’s cut his hair, so it isn’t as curly and fluffy as it used to be.

“Honestly? Probably. Pete’s weird.”

* * *

Between breakfast and lunch is a time period in which there are many things to be done, and most of them are signs. Brendon ends up enlisted by Nate Novarro to hang up the signs in the dining hall, which he agrees to because it seems simple enough.

“It’s not gonna be that bad, right?” Brendon asks, as they climb the steps into the dining hall. He doesn’t elaborate, but he’s pretty sure Nate knows he doesn’t mean hanging up six posters.

“What, being Gerard’s Gopher?” Nate asks. “Nah. See, the thing with Gabe was that he’s got a brain that works in a million places at once, and I am one person who can only do maybe three things at once, at most. If those things aren’t too complicated, or can be done in quick sequence. Also, Gabe wanted me to steal food from the Gopher Hole. I know you don’t know Victoria well, but trust me—I’m not stealing food from her.”

“Gerard’s allowed into the Gopher Hole,” Brendon says. “He told me last night.”

“Yeah, so if Gerard wants something, he’ll get it himself,” Nate agrees. “The most unnecessary thing he’ll ask you to do is grab him a drink, but only if he’s doing something outside of the Talk Room and it’s too pressing for him to duck out. And that’s really the point of you anyway, is to duck out and get something when he can’t do it himself.”

They’re inside, now, and Nate’s handing Brendon one roll of posters. He sets the other one on a table. Nate tears off some strips of masking tape and sticks them to Brendon’s arm.

“Other problem, I have no idea where anything is,” Brendon adds after a moment. “So I don’t—”

“Do you know how to get back to the Talk room from here?” Nate cuts him off, while simultaneously hanging a Blessing poster on the wall.

“Well, yeah, but…”

“Do you know which room in the back of the Talk Room is the Gopher Hole?”

“I do.”

“The room right next to it is where the Caritas are waiting.”

“Okay?”

Nate turns back to him, makes grabby hands until Brendon hands him another poster, and leads Brendon to the other side of the wall. “On the way back, I’ll make sure you know which door in the Centrum leads to the Prayer Chapel, and then there. You’ll know where all the important things are.”

“I already know which door is the Prayer Chapel,” Brendon says, because he had been talking with Ryan until Ryan said he had to go in there real quick. Also, he still remembers from last Happening, when he waited to talk with Mark.

Nate shrugs. “Then what’s the problem?"

* * *

After that, Brendon and Jenna—the Chaplain from last Happening—go around and hang up the signs over the clocks. Brendon likes this job, because he gets to stand on beds in the cabins to reach the clocks near the ceilings.

“Are we supposed to be standing on the beds?” he asks, sticking a sign that has _It’s ~~Hammer~~ God’s Time! _ written in blue marker over the clock.

“No more than three people standing on one bed,” Jenna recites, as if it’s something she’s heard many times before. “And absolutely no jumping.”

Brendon looks her dead in the eye before jumping off the bed, landing on the balls of his feet.

She just laughs at him. “Okay, wise guy, let’s go.”

They don’t encounter any problems, until the only clock left is the one in the Centrum, too high above their heads to reach.

“Let’s grab one of the picnic tables,” Jenna suggests. Brendon stares up at the clock, considers how much height the picnic table will add. He’s pretty sure it’s not enough. He helps Jenna, though, because not to do so would be rude. The table is heavy and awkward, edges rough enough that Brendon thinks he should be worried about splinters. It takes a lot of work to get the table where they need it, and they really more dragged it than carried it.

Afterwards, when they’re both standing on the table, Brendon notes that he was right. It’s not enough. “What next?” he asks.

“Do you think you could jump high enough?” Jenna asks him thoughtfully.

Brendon considers it, looks up at the clock and down at the ground. He knows the answer is no, because he’d lose his footing on the trip down, fall off the table and snap his ankle or something. “I’d rather not die this early in the weekend,” he says, looking back up at the clock.

“That’s fair,” Jenna admits. A moment later, she calls, “Hey, Gabe! Give us a hand?”

Gabe bounds over, and gets on the table, between the two of them. “What’s the problem, _chica_?”

“We’re not ten feet tall,” Jenna explains, pointing at the clock.

“Yes, that is a problem,” Gabe agrees.

Jenna’s mistake, Brendon thinks, was that she asked _Gabe_ for help, rather than William, who is just as tall and was walking right beside him. But because she asked Gabe rather than William, Brendon finds himself hoisted involuntarily into the air long enough to slap the sign onto the clock.

As soon as Gabe lets go, Brendon hops down to the solid concrete floor of the Centrum, where William pats him sympathetically on the shoulder.

“I think Gerard’s in the Gopher Hole,” he suggests. Brendon knows that Gerard said last night that he wouldn’t be needed until later, but any excuse to run from Gabe without obviously running is a godsend and Brendon isn’t stupid enough to pass it up.

Gerard is, in fact, in the Gopher Hole, talking to Ryland. Patrick is also in the Gopher Hole, and Pete is just outside the door, scrawling in the notebook.

Ryland sees Brendon first, and his eyes light up. “Brendon, good, I don’t have to try and find you.” He reaches into a box, hands Brendon something. Unfolding it, Brendon finds it’s a gopher pouch.

“So I still get one of these, even if I’m not a small group gopher?”

Ryland nods. “You keep it stocked, too. Just fill up before Candidates start arriving, alright?”

“Uh, yeah. Sounds good.”

“When do I get my hat?” Pete asks, inching closer to the threshold of the room. Patrick angles his chair so that he’s blocking Pete’s entry. Pete pouts. “You’ve gotta let me in eventually,” he points out.

“Why? We’re talking just fine like this.”

“Why don’t you love me anymore?”

“There’s a list,” Patrick says. “Would you like it alphabetically or chronologically?”

Gerard ducks between the two of them, motioning for Brendon to follow. He hears Pete say, “Any order is fine so long as you sing it to me,” but then Gerard pulls him out the door onto the deck overlooking the field.

“This is going to be a long weekend,” Gerard mutters, hopping onto the railing. Brendon sits on one of the chairs, because he doesn’t feel like falling backwards and snapping his neck. He doesn’t think Ginger would be very thrilled with him if that happened.

“Did we just run away from your Observing Rector?” Brendon asks, because he feels like that’s not something you’re supposed to do. Ryan had mentioned that he was following Tyler around _all weekend_.

Gerard shrugs. “He’ll probably go find Billie Joe next. Get the clicker.”

Brendon doesn’t like the sound of Pete with a clicker counter. He doesn’t mention it.

* * *

For Candidate check-in, Brendon sits on the check-in table with the bucket for the phones and watches. Pete had been nearby, sulking about not being the fairy this time and also clicking the counter relentlessly, until Patrick threatened to shove the clicker in a very unpleasant place (Pete had tried to turn it into something sexual, but then Patrick glared at him and Pete’s face crumpled. Brendon’s back to confused).

When everyone’s checked in, Brendon finds Gerard, confirms that there’s nothing he needs to do, then he sits down and watches four square. (Also, his supply of mints almost depletes entirely, and the chocolate is halved. Brendon himself only eats three pieces. He’s very proud of himself).

He vaguely remembers last Happening, that when Pete and Gabe both got to the court, everybody was excited. He also remembers that he never found out why, but Pete is _dominating_ the game. He stepped onto the court a dozen rounds ago, and he was in King almost in the barest amount of rounds possible. Gabe’s next in line, so Brendon figures he’ll see what’s so special in a second.

“I always forget how good he is at this,” Patrick muses, sitting down beside Brendon. Brendon looks over at him.

“You already look exhausted,” he notices out loud.

Patrick laughs. “Did Pete tell you why he’s not allowed in the Gopher Hole?”

“I think he said something about eating all the candy,” Brendon remembers.

“He ate _everything_ ,” Patrick corrects. “I was Caritas, in the room right next door. He wasn’t even subtle about it, like Gabe always was. Gabe managed Gopher three times before he got caught, and that’s just because Pete ruined it for everyone. So, obviously, we still don’t want him in there. He’ll steal the food.”

“Makes sense,” Brendon acknowledges.

“And it never mattered, because once trying to get into the Gopher Hole got old, he’d just come bother me for a bit.”

“And now you’re in the Gopher Hole.”

“Brendon, he’s trying to _annoy_ his way into the Gopher Hole, like he’s literally just trying to get us to let him in so he’ll _shut up_.”

Brendon pats his back. He’s noticing that he’s been doing that a lot.

Meanwhile, Gabe has joined the game. Nothing happens at first, until he hits the second square. Immediately, four square becomes a Gabe-Pete show, the ball only getting to the other two squares out of consideration, and seemingly as an afterthought.

Brendon’s glad he’s not in the game. He’d get his ass handed to him.

He catches sight of Ryan, then, trailing into the Centrum behind Tyler with his binder close to his chest. Tyler’s talking animatedly to Josh Dun, but Ryan ducks out and sits on a picnic table close by.

“Good luck with Pete,” Brendon wishes Patrick sincerely, standing up and making his way over to Ryan.

“I’m thinking this was a mistake,” Ryan says, as soon as Brendon’s within earshot. There’s a group of people playing basketball in front of them, a group that includes Tyler and Josh.

“Chaplain or sitting by the flying basketball?” Brendon asks. Ryan huffs out a laugh.

“You know, I was talking about Chaplain, but you’re right, the basketball thing was dumb too.”

“It’s not a mistake Ryan,” Brendon assures him, scooting closer so their shoulders and knees are touching. “Otherwise they wouldn’t have chosen you.”

“It’s just a lot more than I thought it would be,” Ryan explains. “Tyler actually chose the small groups, he decided which small group leaders would be good together, and he had to sit there with the list of Candidates and group them together, making sure that nobody knew each other that well.”

That does sound like a lot. Brendon had just thought that all it was was praying all the time.

“I doubt Tyler had to do all of it absolutely alone,” Brendon points out. Before Ryan can object, he adds, “I don’t mean that I think Ryland and Gerard helped him. I mean that I think he got in touch with people who maybe know the Candidates better than him, asked them how well some of them knew each other. Asked the small group leaders if they thought they’d be able to work together. I think Tyler had resources that he used to his advantage. I think you’re worried you’ll mess this up somehow, and maybe you will. But I _know_ that you’ll get this, and you’ll do fine. _Better_ than fine. You’ll do _great_ , Ry.”

Ryan smiles, watching Tyler for a while. “You make a compelling argument,” he allows. “But Tyler did say that there’s a lot more than he had expected. I think we all think that Head Gopher has the most to do, but there’s Pete’s giant binder to contend.”

“Pete’s binder scares me,” Brendon admits. “Also, Pete. Pete scares me.”

“Yeah, he tends to have that effect.”

* * *

The rest of Friday night passes in a sleepy haze of familiarity, a nametag skit with celebrities that Brendon vaguely knows and songs he’s coming to know well, icebreaker games that he’s played before and a list of rules that he’s heard already. The only difference is that Gerard’s reading the rules off, and Max is reading the Please Listen talk that Tyler gave last Happening—the talk itself, though, is exactly the same—and then there’s Patrick giving the Reality talk.

When all the Candidates go to bed, the Team has a brief meeting, where Gerard tells who’s giving talks tomorrow and they go over a few more things that Brendon wants to say he pays attention to but in truth, he’s falling asleep where he’s sitting.

He walks back to the cabin with Spencer, because Spencer’s in his cabin. Ryan isn’t, he’s in one of the Lagoon houses, so Ryan parts ways with them at the firepit.

“So, is there any particular reason you didn’t tell us that you were giving a talk this weekend?” Spencer asks conversationally.

Brendon’s brow furrows. “You found out a month ago, why are you just now asking me?”

Spencer shrugs. “It’s been gnawing at me.”

“It didn’t come up?” Brendon tries. He doesn’t need to look at Spencer to know he’s got that bitch face, the one that very clearly says _I’m not buying your shit_. “I guess…it’s like with the Caritas? You know, how I wanted to do it on my own?”

Spencer huffs a laugh. “Ryan was the same way, actually. I went into his room to use him as a thesaurus and he was on the floor trying to fend off a panic attack. There were a lot of awful memories that he had to revisit for his talk, and he tried to revisit them all by himself.”

Brendon feels kind of bad, now, for not telling them. He’s sure that as soon as they found out they got worried about him. “Well, the good news is I didn’t have a panic attack?” he says uncertainly.

“That is good news,” Spencer agrees. “Ryan wouldn’t have forgiven himself if you had. He’d have thought that it was entirely his fault because he should have noticed, or something stupid like that. Just, if you get chosen to do another talk next time, let us know, please?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Brendon assures him. “Never again. I had to write this thing while also writing that essay on Shakespeare.”

“That’s rough, man,” Spencer says sympathetically. They’re in the bathroom by now, getting ready to brush their teeth so they can go to bed. “’S why I never did any talks.”

* * *

“And now we have Brendon Urie,” Gerard says, and Brendon’s heart starts pounding somewhere in his throat. He’d hoped, when he agreed to give the talk, that Ryan would be there, so Brendon could look at him to calm down, but Ryan and Spencer are his Prayer Partners, so both of them are in the Prayer Chapel. “With the Faith Talk,” Gerard finishes.

Brendon doesn’t trip on his way up to the podium, he’ll count that as a win. Pete shoots him a comforting smile, and Brendon can actually feel his heart calm down marginally. Pete gave this Talk last year, he _knows_ how hard it is.

Brendon has a copy of Pete’s Talk on his dresser back home, an example that he was given so that he knew what to include in his own.

“Faith,” Brendon says, and he can hear the way his voice wavers. He keeps going though, because that’s the only thing he can do. “It’s a word that we, as Christians, are well acquainted with. The dictionary defines ‘faith’ as a ‘firm belief in something for which there is no proof,’ which I’m pretty sure describes this concept of Christianity pretty well. And, truth be told, six months ago, I was entirely lacking in this word called ‘faith.’

“Six months ago, I was a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints. Mormons. My parents hold those teachings in the highest regard, which led to me being this weird kid in my school who had never had coffee and didn’t know who the Kardashians are. But I didn’t believe the same things my parents believed in, I didn’t believe in the same God my parents believed in. I didn’t believe the teachings of Joseph Smith. I couldn’t bring myself to believe in a God who cares so strongly about whether or not you drink coffee or Coca-Cola or anything caffeinated at all, who cared about whether or not you paid a tithe to the church. Honestly, six months ago, I’m not entirely sure that I believed in any God at all.

“What I believed in was who I was, and that was someone who would rather have a boyfriend of any religion than a girlfriend of the Mormon one. And that…Oh, that was bad. I mean, that was _really_ bad. My parents, they didn’t like the fact that their son was trying to tell them that he was gay, that was…That was a Very Bad Thing. My father started screaming, shouting for me to repent. The Mormons believe that God will forgive all sins, with the exception of murder and rejection of the Godhead. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I’d kind of done that second one.” Brendon has to take a deep breath, blink away the tears gathering in his eyes so that he can see the words on the paper in front of him.

“Having parents that refused to accept me for who I was really broke me, too. My parents believed _so strongly_ in this God that they would have rather had me carted away to a pray-the-gay-away camp, how am I supposed to believe in this same God? A God that won’t love me for who I am, would have me reject myself and change myself and pretend to fall in love with someone who could never make me happy?

“Enter the pretty boy who lived next door, with his weirdly soft-looking hair and his cheekbones and his stupid face. He came over to my house and talked my parents into sending me to some stupid church camp, where I’d ‘come to terms with my faith’ and ‘spend a whole weekend strengthening my bond with God.’ I was angry. I _hated_ this kid, I hated this stupid church camp, it’s going to be awful, I want to go home, I’ve already rejected God, murder can’t be that much worse. And then I walked across that field, the same one all of you had to walk across, and I saw Pete Wentz dressed like a fairy.”

“Heck yeah!” Pete calls, raising a fist in the air.

“So, okay, this church camp—Happening—became less _stupid_ and more _weird_ and _confusing_. There was a lot going on and I was getting a lot of hints that homosexuality is maybe not as bad as I was led to believe and God maybe doesn’t actually care if you drink coffee or Coca-Cola and it’s not _tithing_ it’s offertory and the money goes to a lot of different places. And I got the chance to talk to Mark, and Mark made God sound a lot less like an overbearing parent and more like a parent who wants you to enjoy yourself but also not lie or kill anybody.

“The funny thing, the _truly_ funny thing about all of this is that there’s still no proof. I didn’t get a chorus of angels descend from the heavens at any point and say, ‘God is real, why don’t you believe?’ or anything like that. So I guess the point is that you’re going to hit a roadblock in your faith. You’re going to encounter a problem that makes you stop and think _do I really believe in a God who allows this?_ And that is okay. Because you’ll come out of that problem with your faith stronger than ever. Don’t believe me? That’s perfectly fine. Six months ago, neither did I. Amen.”

Brendon knows that next he’s supposed to go to the Prayer Chapel, so that’s where he goes. As he walks down the ramp outside, he hears the applause stop and then start again (after each talk, Gerard always says, “let’s give [blank] another round of applause”].

Ryan and Spencer are tucked away in a corner, near the white board Brendon knows is for names of people that someone wants to pray for. He tries not to look at his name, written in Ryan’s messy scrawl. He sits down between them, and they say a quick prayer in thanks for Brendon’s strength and his courage to find the right words. When they walk back inside, Spencer’s a little bit ahead of Brendon and Ryan.

Brendon wants to tell Ryan, wants to tell him something he’s been thinking about. He just can’t find the words.

* * *

Mark, as always, has an open invitation for anybody who wants to talk to him about anything. He also has an open invitation—more of a request, actually—for anybody who maybe wants to be one of the people saying prayers at the healing service.

Brendon is not planning on being one of those people. He’s more comfortable praying in his head than he was at first, sure, but praying out loud is awkward and he’s not a fan. He really respects Ryan for agreeing to doing nothing but all next Happening.

Brendon actually has to talk to Mark about something else, for Gerard, but while he’s there he decides to ask him his question too.

“One more thing,” he says, turning back around. Mark hums to show he’s listening. “I, um…I was wondering if…” Brendon closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. When he opens his eyes back up, Mark’s watching him patiently. “What do I have to do to go about getting baptized?”

Mark smiles softly, motions for Brendon to sit. He does. Gerard can wait a moment.

“I’m assuming since you’re asking me instead of your regular priest, you’d like to be baptized here?” Mark says carefully.

Brendon nods. “It all started here,” he explains. “I want this to start here too.”

“Would you like to be baptized this weekend, or did you want to wait until next Happening?”

Brendon thinks about it. “This weekend. I want it to be this weekend.” He knows that means today or tomorrow, knows it means short-notice, but he wants it to be this weekend.

Mark nods. “I’ll have to talk to Billie Joe about it,” he says. “Because we’re proposing a schedule change. But I don’t think that’s going to be too much of an issue. I’ll let you know as soon as I do.”

“Thank you,” Brendon says, standing back up. He needs to get back to Gerard, before Gerard thinks that Brendon’s forgotten about him.

“Thank _you_ ,” Mark replies. “I’ve never baptized anyone at Happening before.”

* * *

The meeting Saturday night is the single worst thing Brendon’s ever experienced. It’s late already, he just wants to go to sleep. He’s falling asleep on Ryan’s shoulder, even as Gerard goes through the list of Candidates, writing down who’s waking up whom. He’s exhausted after the dance party, emotionally drained after the Healing Service.

He’s getting ready to go out the door when Mark stops him.

Ryan hangs back, just out of earshot, as Mark tells Brendon that Billie Joe gave the green light. Brendon’s going to be baptized tomorrow, after Pete gives his Talk.

* * *

Brendon thinks Gerard knows, now, because Billie Joe would have had to tell him that they weren’t going straight back to the Centrum after Pete finishes.

Brendon wants to pay attention to Pete, he _does_ —these Talks are always personal, he knows that (very well now after giving one himself)—but all he can do is stare out at the water and think, think about what this is going to entail, what he’s going to have to do. He really didn’t give himself any time at all to back out of this, he should have told Mark _next time_ because he’s getting nervous, _what is he going to have to do?_ Even more importantly, Brendon’s used to baptisms being performed by immersion, and it’s cold and Brendon’s wearing a white shirt, he is _not_ prepared to get dunked in freezing lake water.

When Pete’s Talk ends, Billie Joe stands up instead of Gerard, says, “This is typically the part where we head back to the Centrum to prepare for the closing service. But, today, we’re going to do things a little bit different.” Behind him, Mark’s fidgeting with something at the altar. “Brendon, if you’d like to come up.”

He can feel everyone’s eyes on him, especially Ryan’s and Spencer’s. It occurs to him that he didn’t tell either of them about this either, but at least this time it actually did slip his mind (minus yesterday, when he considered telling Ryan but lost the words).

Mark has Brendon take off his socks and shoes, then roll his jeans up, then he leads him (and everyone else) to the lake. Mark and Brendon wade in to just above ankle level and stop. Everybody else stops just before the water.

Mark says a blessing over the water, something Brendon assumes is just to make it holy. Then he bends down, cups some water in his hands, and releases it over Brendon’s head three separate times, saying, “Brendon, I baptize you in the name of the Father, of the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

Billie Joe hands Mark some anointment oil, and Mark makes a cross on Brendon’s forehead, saying another prayer, and then it’s over.

“Let us welcome Brendon to the Episcopal Church,” Mark announces, leading Brendon back onto dry land. Everybody hugs him, so that Brendon doesn’t even know who he’s hugging anymore. Eventually, they let him back to his shoes, and it’s just him, Ryan, and Spencer.

“Okay, now that was cool,” Ryan says with a grin, instead of asking why Brendon didn’t tell him about this plan. “Probably worth the inevitable frostbite in your toes.”

Brendon shoves him lightly. “I’m not gonna get _frostbite_. Honestly, just because I can’t feel anything below my ankle doesn’t mean anything.” He stands up, socks and shoes firmly back on his feet (even though his feet are still damp and kind of gross from all the dirt), and they start heading back to the Centrum. “That was actually terrifying. I thought I was going to get dunked into the lake.”

“Why would Mark do that?” Spencer asks curiously. “That water must have been freezing, he wouldn’t want to go that deep in himself.”

“Mormons baptize by immersion,” Brendon explains. “I thought everyone else did, too.”

“One of the best things about Episcopalians,” Ryan says. “Knowing how to swim is not a requirement.”

“Neither is snake-handling,” Spencer adds. “And the weekly pew aerobics are cool, too.”

“No, I could absolutely do without the aerobics,” Brendon counters. “They are not _cool_ , Spencer Smith.”

“Spencer’s a nerd,” Ryan reminds him. “He thinks _everything_ is cool, except things that are actually cool.”

“This coming from the walking thesaurus who watches fancy French movies and reads Anna Karenina for _fun_ ,” Spencer counters.

Ryan gasps, faking offense. “Brendon, defend my honor, I beg you!”

Brendon looks between the two, a grin on his face. “How can I, when you force me to watch the same fancy French movies? Ryan, I don’t want to read my movies.”

“Tyler would never stand for this,” Ryan says. “Tyler treats me right.”

“Yeah, but Tyler’s straight,” Spencer reminds him. “Your choices are Brendon, Patrick, and Pete.”

As they line up in the Centrum, watching the small groups get into their lines for the service to follow, Brendon thinks, _Everything’s going to be just fine_. Unlike last time, when everything was uncertain and Brendon was afraid of what would happen next, Brendon knows there’s nothing to worry about. He’s got two great friends, one of whom is his _boyfriend_ , and he’s going home to a place where that’s okay.

Last Happening was the best thing that’s ever happened to Brendon. And, while he doesn’t think anything’s going to change that, this Happening is a very close second.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it. This is the end of the story. There actually was one Happening where a girl was baptized and it was the _coolest fucking thing_ I've ever seen. Coincidentally, she was the person who gave the Faith Talk that year. Imagine that.
> 
> Thank you all so much for your support, and for coming along on this ride. It was a long one, this whole story took me a little over a year, I think, in the grand scheme of things. I have no idea what comes next, but I guess we'll find out together. (Hopefully whatever it is will feature consistent uploads!) Until next time, friendos!

**Author's Note:**

> Any questions? pyromanicschizophrenic.tumblr.com!


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